Just Us
by Het Up
Summary: The clone is like Superboy down to the last strand of DNA. Every inch of skin has the same blemishes, every strand of hair has the same darkness. So why doesn't Tim feel loved?
1. Chapter 1

It hurts to look at him.

It shouldn't hurt, it should make him feel happy. The clone IS Kon, every inch of skin, every strand of hair, every cuticle and fingerprint and bone... yet it isn't.

But it could be, if Tim tries hard enough. He knows it can be.

The clone sits patiently and listens while Tim explains everything. He watches with calm interest the pictures and videos and newspaper articles Tim shows him. He listens quietly as Tim explains to him how his Kryptonian DNA has genetic tags for racial memory, so he should be able to remember the other life. But he doesn't say anything, not even when Tim says he loves him.

* * *

The muscles grow and harden the more he stays in the sunlight. His eyes grow sharper and his limbs grow longer and Tim could swear he smiles just like Kon the first time he discovers he can fly.

But it's just a trick of the light.

* * *

Tim shows the clone everything Kon used to like. The TV shows, the movies, even the Newsies soundtrack Tim couldn't stand. The clone reacts to it all with the same detached disinterest. He attends to his hygiene and daily chores exactly as Tim taught him. At night, he doesn't sleep and doesn't move from his bed, even when he hears Tim's crying through the walls.

* * *

On the fifth day Tim shows him the statue. They'd added it to the one in front of Titan Tower. The artist must have had some kind of Peter Pan complex, because the Superboy immortalized in bronze had on a very nineties Superman-alike costume under a leather jacket. Tim couldn't bear to look at the sunglasses over the impish grin, but he made the clone look. "That's you. That's who you're going to be again."

The clone reached out and touched the ankle of the statue, almost reverently. His eyes took in the up, up, and away pose. Then they flared red and the statue was pulled apart.

"Take me home now."

* * *

"Do you want something from me?" the clone asks over breakfast (Belgian waffles, Kon's favorite).

"I want you to be happy," Tim lies, pouring syrup.

"I wasn't happy... before?"

"You were dead."

It's not an answer, but the clone doesn't press the point.

"Her name was Cassie."

The words come out of the blue. Tim looks up and sees his friend standing there and feels like he might cry.

"That's right."

"Cassie Sandsmark. I can't remember her face... but I can remember how she made me feel."

And Tim feels like he's being punched in the gut over and over again, but it's a _good_ feeling.

"You loved her."

The clone nod. "When can I see her?"

"Soon. Very soon."

* * *

On the tenth day Tim took the clone to see his father. They waited on top of the Daily Planet and Tim handed the clone a pair of eyeglasses. "Put them on."

The clone did, but with a disobedient, questioning pause that made Tim feel like it was Christmas morning.

"What. Have. You.**Done**?"

Superman hovered there, caught in the shadow of the globe. Tim was reminded of the times his father read Peter Pan to him, especially the description of Captain Hook plunging a hook into someone. How two red spots appeared in his eyes and lit them up horribly.

"I've brought him back!" Tim said insistently, gesturing to the clone. "I've fixed it! I've made things like they were!"

Superman landed, cape curled tightly around him. "You've made an... obscenity. A blasphemy to Connor's name. All of you Robins, you say you're never going to be Batman. I've seen Nightwing in Africa. You're all the same... what you've done is wrong."

"Don't talk about him like he isn't here! I can _save_ him! I've saved so many others, why not him? Why not when it matters most? Why not when it's for me?" Tim shouted, then shook his head. "No. He's Kon! He's Superboy now!"

"Tim... Superboy's dead."

The clone took off his glasses. "What'd he say about me?"

"Don't listen to him, Kon," Tim insisted, ushering him away.

The clone pushed Tim aside, Kryptonian muscles easily overwhelming the youth's. "I want to hear what he's saying about me."

Superman placed a calming hand on the clone's shoulder. "Son, we can get you help. You can be... someone else, someone alive..."

The clone slapped the hand away. "How can you say that? Don't you remember? You gave me Krypto..."

"Stop the lies!" Superman yelled, shoving the clone back. "Kon-El is dead! You'll never be him!"

The clone's mouth worked silently. He looked helplessly at Tim. "You... you said he was my father. Why is he saying these things? You said he'd help me."

Tim tried to put on his best face despite it all. "He will. Just give him time. He can't see..."

"Don't listen to him." Superman walked in front of Tim, hands clenched into white knuckles. "He's trying to make you something you're not. You can't bring the past back to life."

"He's not the past. He's the future." Tim stood up. "We're the future. World's Finest. Maybe you and Bruce forgot about that, but we won't. We're going to bring things back to the way they should be. We're going to get Cassie back and Kory and Gar and Raven..."

"Now you're starting to sound like Superboy-Prime."

Superman saw the punch coming, but didn't do anything to move. He heard a sound like dry twigs snapping as Tim's fist slammed into his chin. Tim fell back, clutching his broken hand. "You were my hero," he said plaintively. "I thought you'd understand. Didn't you love him?"

"More than you could ever know..."

The clone stepped forward, concern written all over his face. "Tim? Are you alright?" His eyes went blank for a moment and his X-ray vision painted for him cracks and fractures where there should be smoothness. He whirled on Superman, confused and angry and desperate. "You hurt him. I thought you were a hero. He said you were a hero."

Superman looked sorry for a moment, then raised his head to meet the clone's eyes. "I suppose he's said a lot of things."

This punch Superman didn't see coming. The clone's touch telekinesis rushed through his knuckles as they made contact, ripping through Superman's body like an angry hurricane, wrecking havoc with his nervous system. Superman fell backwards, muscles spasming uncontrollably. The clone looked down at him.

"You're not my father."

* * *

They sat alone in the laboratory, the clone holding Tim's hand in both of his own, touch telekinesis mending the bones until they were like new.

"We were... friends, weren't we? Brothers."

Tim looked up sadly. He pulled his hand away and replaced it inside the green glove. "Yeah. We were."

"Your name was... is Tim Drake. But people also called you Robin."

A sort of rush went through Tim, like a charge of electricity. He looked the clone in the eyes as something glimmered inside them.

"There was a girl named Steph, and you lost her. And a girl made of... sand? Her name was Greta, but we called her Secret. She liked ice cream and Harrison Ford and had a crush on you."

Tim nodded, shell-shocked, crying and not caring anymore.

"Kid Flash... Impulse... he never shut up. Tania... she meant something to me. And you had a father, a real father. Jack Drake."

Tim covered his mouth with a fist, refusing to believe it, refusing to hope.

"You've lost so much... why me? Why try to bring me back?"

"Because... because I couldn't bear to lose anything else. I couldn't bear to let them cut off another limb. I couldn't hold my breath anymore."

He didn't so much lunge forward as fall in that direction, wrapping his arms around Kon's chest and breathing in deep, heaving sobs. Kon let his arms hang limply at his sides until he remembered how to hug back.

"Let's go see Cassie now," Tim said.


	2. Chapter 2

Clark Kent wrapped his arm tightly in the splint, wincing at the pain. He hated it, hated losing control over his body. The other heroes hated being insensate because it gave someone the chance to unmask them, but he hated the feeling of his body rebelling against him, refusing to obey his commands. It reminded him of the occasions when his body actually had rebelled against him, when someone took him over or altered his mind and made him betray the trust of the humans.

Just like Robin had betrayed his trust. There was no excuse for what the Drake boy had done, none whatsoever. Playing God for his own warped ends. Clark knew he should tell the rest of the League, but when it came right down to it, who would Batman side with? He'd gambled with Supergirl, true, but Superboy's memory was...

Was sacrosanct.

No, this couldn't be allowed to continue. He couldn't risk being shouted down by the others. He picked up the phone and called the number of the one person he knew would both see it his way... and could help.

* * *

Kon looked out the window as acres of farmland stretched out as far as the eye could see. "She really moved here?"

Tim turned down the radio and looked at him. Kon had to remind himself that Tim was old enough to own a car now. "I guess she wanted to feel closer to you after you... left. We all did."

"So, after her, who's next?"

Turning off the radio completely, Tim focused his eyes back on the road as he continued. "What, isn't Cassie enough? We don't even know how that's going to work out." Off Kon's look, he quickly said: "But I'm sure it'll turn out fine."

"We need to plan out every move six steps in advance. Know what we're going to do before we do it."

"Why? Because of Superman? That was just an isolated incident. Some heated words were said, but he'll come around. I mean, he's _been_ dead, who is he to criticize you?"

Kon rested his head against the window. "No. He's only the beginning. They won't understand this, Tim. And people always fear what they don't understand. No, they won't accept it. Won't accept your vision."

"My 'vision'?"

"Poor choice of words?"

"Strange choice of words."

Kon's slight smile was reflected in the car window's reflection. "Suits my mood."

"Your mood?"

"Twenty questions much? I just died and came back to life, so you'll have to forgive the melancholy."

"You're forgiven."

* * *

"She lives there?" Kon asked, looking at the small house through the dust-stained windshield. "Never pictured Cassie as a farmgirl. Well, except in this one fantasy I had... Milkmaids, ya know? Get me every time."

"Small sheep farm. Sells hand-shorn wool. Does good business in what's left of Bludhaven. More protection against the radiation. At least that's what the hucksters say."

"Wait, radiation?" Kon massaged his temples. "What happened to Bludhaven? Is Nightwing okay?"

"Nightwing's fine. You really don't remember? You were alive for..."

Whatever migraine Kon seemed to be having intensified as he bent himself almost into a fetal position, head around his knees. "It's all hazy. I can feel the memories coming back, like rain running backwards up a window... bits... fragments... tell me, did I ever know anyone named Lionel?"

"No..."

"Never mind then. Probably some side character in Wendy the Werewolf Slayer I wrote a fanfic about. Whatever happened to that show anyway? She ever find out who killed her mother?"

Tim smiled and got out of the car. "They canceled it."

"Figures." Kon unbuckled his seatbelt and started to open his door. Tim pushed it shut.

"Look, maybe it's best if you stay in here for now. Let me talk to her first. Don't want this to be a shock."

"Oh, yeah, ease her into it. 'Hey, Cassie, how 'bout the we rent that movie about the girl whose boyfriend comes back from the dead? Oh, wait, we don't have to, you're living it!'"

"I'll try to break it to her a tad more gently than that."

* * *

Tim didn't know what he was expecting when he entered. Probably not the Roman Senate, but something along those lines. He wasn't expecting a rustic, downhome setting. There were a few bits of modern technology scattered incongruously about, mostly kitchen appliances and a large home entertainment system, but other than that the furniture was mostly handcrafted.

"Tea?" Cassie asked, setting a tray down on the coffee table. Tim picked up a cup and smiled.

"Cassie, you remember when Superman died?"

"Barely. Seems so long ago now. Like a whole 'nother life... which I guess it is."

Tim sighed. "Did you ever think about how so many of us seem to die and come back?"

Cassie set down her tea cup and glared at Tim. "Every damn day. But I've moved on. You have to let go of the past, Tim, or it..."

"Wait... there isn't someone else, is there?"

* * *

Kon looked at his reflection in the rear-view mirror, bleached alabaster by the afternoon sun. It seemed to be speaking to him, seemed to be...

_Son_.

Kon started. Just a dream. He opened the door and stepped out of the car.

* * *

"He can't be back," Cassie said, smiling despite herself. Her smile grew wider as she said "I mean, can he?"

There was a knock at the front door.

Cassie was up like a racing horse coming out of the stalls. Tim stood up, saying "Cassie, wait," for no real reason as she elbowed past him and swung the door open and...

Kon smiled. "Hey. Long time no see."

Cassie didn't waste time with words. She just jumped onto him in a deep embrace, wrapping her legs around his waist as she buried her face into the space between his neck and shoulder. "Goddamnit, Conner, I thought I'd lost you."

Brushing her hair back, Kon whispered something Tim couldn't make out into her ear and kissed her on the cheek.

Tim slipped out the backdoor.

* * *

Sitting down at the bar, Tim quickly ordered a bourbon. He knew the weight and tone of the footsteps approaching and didn't care if the other saw what he was drinking.

"When the boss gave you that fake ID," Dick said, sitting down next to him. "I'm sure he didn't mean for you to use it to get drunk."

"A lot of things happen that nobody means to happen."

Dick sighed, but didn't protest as Tim's drink arrived and he wolfed down the shot.

"How many people know?" Tim asked in a sullen, tiny voice.

"Superman's keeping it tight with the core JLAers so far. He wants this handled quietly. I only know because Wally told me. God, Tim, cloning's a serious offense. What were you thinking?"

"I guess I wasn't. Be honest. If this was a week after he'd died, do you really think anyone would say anything?"

"But it hasn't been a week. It's been a year. A year and you never thought about the consequences?

Tim looked at him sadly. "Would it have taken a year for you to give up on me?"

"It would take more than an eternity for me to give up on you."

* * *

"And I think that's just about everything you missed," Cassie finished, taking in a deep breath of air and reaching up to take in hand the arm Kon had draped around her shoulders. From the clock on the wall, it was five A.M.

"So, this 'Batwoman' is a lesbian and Green Arrow's the mayor of Star City. Got it. There going to be a quiz later?"

"Just an essay question," Cassie rested her head on his shoulder and continued in a suddenly solemn tone. "What was it like? Being... you know."

"I saw Elvis. He looked great." Oblivious to her trepidation, Kon kissed her on the crown of her head. "Why so tense? I'm back. It's not like the Grim Reaper is going to show up and demand to see my green card."

"You were dead, Conner. How can you be so... up?"

"I'm alive."

Cassie sat up. "I know what you want to ask, and the answer is no. There hasn't been anyone else. Not terribly feminist of me, I'll admit. But every time I let another man touch me, I think of you and that night and I know it can't compare. I can't bear to lower my standards and I know it's just nostalgia...

"To me, it's a fresh as yesterday," Kon interrupted, taking her hand in both of his. "And it meant the same to me. I know I'm alive, my heart pumps blood, my lungs breathe air, my eyes blink and tear and see... but I didn't feel that way until I came here. I love you."

The kiss was wild and spontaneous and enough to convince Cassie that he couldn't be an imposter or a dream or a hoax or an imaginary tale.

And when his hands began pulling at her musky clothes, reeking of sweat from a hard day's work, she only took a moment to protest "But this isn't... what are you doing?"

"If you're wondering _that_, it really has been a long time."

"No, I mean... so soon? And me like this, smelling disgusting and..."

Conner tilted his head forward in a way that made Cassie think of someone else, but she couldn't put her finger on who. "I don't care. Right now, I just want to be with the woman I love. I don't care how she smells or looks (okay, that's a lie), I just care about what's on the inside." Then he paused and the resulting smile was all Kon. "That was a poor choice of words wasn't it?"

"Oh yeah."

* * *

Although the news of Conner's "resurrection" was contained on Earth, space was another matter. Hal Jordan's report to the Guardians of Oa mentioned it as news possibly regarding further development and from there the news spread quickly. And somewhere deep within the bowels of the planet, a thousand willpower strong forcefield erected by ring construct kept out all but the faintest of whispers, to cancel out any possible sonic attacks by the prisoner.

The faintest whisper was more than enough. Ears not of that reality listened as the word came that a new Superboy had come. And slowly, subtly, the prisoner began to draw his plans against the pretender.

* * *

The house was in disarray. Picture frames scattered about, walls burst open, floors ripped up, furniture destroyed. Then, like a video on rewind, time seemed to flow in reverse. Glasses sprung back into place and reassembled, burst water pipes knitted back together, plaster cracks were burnished back into blankness.

Finally, Kon took his hand from the floor and lay back down on the bed.

"That is going to save us a fortune in home repair bills," Cassie said.

"Us?"

"You got a better place to stay?"

Kon seemed to be a million miles away. "We should do something."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I think we just did."

"No, I mean... something formal. Something... _important_. Let ourselves be seen. Show them we're not afraid."

"Afraid?" Cassie laughed. "What do we have to be afraid of?"

"Death. Everyone. That's why we have to show them..." Kon braced himself as another migraine rocked him.

"Conner? Are you alright?" Cassie asked with obvious concern, rolling over to examine his head.

"Just a headache. Comes and goes."

"Do you need some Advil or something?"

Suddenly, Kon pulled her close to him. "Just you." Then she could feel his hand on her and he was once more doing _things_ to her. Using his tactile telekinesis to stimulate her, somehow. It felt like... nothing she had ever experienced and everything all at once.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Cassie gasped.

Kon pulled back, worn out from too much concentrating in the past hour. "Guess it just comes naturally to me. Hey, it's not like I was racking up a lot of notches on my bedpost before you came along... unfortunately."

Cassie punched him in the arm with the force of a landmine going off. But she quickly cuddled up against him. Beneath her, his body was warm and _real_.

"I never saw that side of you before. So rapturous, so avaricious."

Kon looked at her, suddenly worried. "Did I hurt...?"

"No, of course not. Gods, I'm probably stronger than you by now, remember? No, you probably wouldn't. Remind me to explain that later. For now, suffice to say that if we ever get married, you're going to have a handful with the in-laws."

"Well, I don't know how they do things on Paradise Island, but here I think we're still in the screwing like rabbits phase of the relationship. Speaking of which..."

Kon began to sit up. Cassie pushed him back for a moment.

"Mind if we go slow this time? Like... we did the first time?"

"Whatever my lady wishes..."

"Did I mention how sexy this new chivalrous side of you is?"

"Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt thy love," Kon quoted in an eloquent voice.

"That's Shakespeare," Cassie realized. "Hamlet."

"Act 2, Scene 2. To be precise."

"Since when do you read Shakespeare?"

"I don't know. It just came to me."

* * *

It took a dream for Kon to realize why he resented Superman.

He was at the beach, but he wasn't himself, he was small. No, not small, everything else was just huge. And he had been building a sandcastle as Superman (who was as large as everything else) asked him why he was making a sandcastle that looked like a skyscraper.

And Kon answered, quite truthfully, that it was a model for the revamps he would perform on Titan Tower when he was in charge. It would be taller, much taller. So everyone would look up at him.

And Superman just stood over the sandcastle and said "No matter how big you get, I'll always be taller than you."

* * *

Upon waking, Kon stared at himself in the mirror, remembering his earlier words. _It just came to me._ That seemed to be a problem of late. He had a mind for those kind of things. Ask him who the 34th President of the United States was (were they up to 34- _yes_) and he was clueless, but ask him what happened at the Battle of Hoth and he could quote chapter and verse. But he was _sure_ he had never read Hamlet. But he knew that Rosencrantz and Guildenstein bit it offscreen and Ophelia went mad and committed suicide and the proper quote was "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio..."

"_Stop it_!" Kon said through clenched teeth, even though there was no one but his reflection to answer. Behind him, Cassie stirred in her sleep and Kon chastened himself. It wasn't enough that he couldn't sleep, now he had to recruit others into insomnia?

Which was weird for him, because he always slept well, just like Kal-El, he never had a bad dream or a nightmare or a premonition or whatever those weird...

The reflection winked at him.

No. _No_. It was just a trick of light. Just his imagination, playing tricks on him.

Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe there was something _wrong_ with him. Maybe...

Maybe Superman was right about him.

No. Hell no. Heatvision burst from his eyes and reflected off the mirror, cutting through the stubble on his face like a knife through butter. (Hadn't he used to be able to use a razor?)

Tim vouched for him. So did Cassie. His best friends all backed him up. Besides, if he wasn't Kon-El...

Seemingly of their own volition, the laser beams traced over his wild mop of hair, reducing it to the bare essentials until he was left with barely more than stubble.

Who was he?

It would come to him in time, surely. He was remembering everything else, things that could only _be_ Kon's memories... be _his_ memories. But there were other things too, confusing things... things that sprang to mind like...

"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!" Kon said suddenly. "Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit, that from her working all his visage wan'd; tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit? And all for nothing! For Hecuba? What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?"

In the mirror, his reflection was crying and it wasn't until he tasted his own tears that Kon realized he was too.

* * *

Upon waking, Cassie thought it was a dream. She'd had them before, of course. Not the grandiose reunion and earth-shattering sex, just mundane moments. Them eating breakfast together, getting briefed by Robin for a new mission, watching Saturday morning cartoons. But none of the dreams had been as vivid, as real, as being with Conner. Indeed, even real life, the last year of life, hadn't been as real as Conner.

Still, it was with some amount of regret that she woke up, only to find a single red rose on the pillow beside her with a note around it. As love notes went, it was rather unexceptional ("I love you. P.S. It's not a rose, it's a carnation.") but she read it three times before hustling off to find a vase for the flower.

* * *

Kon walked down the street. The glasses Tim gave him seemed to do a good job, as no one recognized him. Not that he thought there were many people who'd say "Hey, you look just like that superhero that died a year ago!" But even so, the game had certain rules to be observed and you had to master the rules before you could bend them and...

And why was he thinking like that?

Screw it. Find something to eat. Hell, bring something back for Cassie to eat. Yeah. Yeah, that'd do it. Plus some wine. And maybe eleven roses to go with the one he'd left her...

And he needed money. He pulled out the insides of his pocket and half-expected a housefly to emerge like in a cartoon. Then an idea came to him. Kneeling down, Kon placed his hand on the ground, palm flat, and began extending his telekinesis. In the past, he had used it like a blunt instrument or a closed fist, blindly exercising force. Now, he used it to extend the sense of touch. He felt through miles of ground, through empty spaces that could only be caves, through oil wells, through rotting corpses...

_There_.

Buried treasure. Kon smiled to himself and traced an X in the dirt with his index finger.

"X marks the spot," he said as he stood up and dusted his jeans off.

It was only a short flight to the spot he was looking for. As he flew, he thought. The dig was only a few miles' drive from a bank. Obviously, sometime in the past someone had robbed said bank and buried the money, probably meaning to escape and come back for it later. Equally obviously, their plan had failed. Such was life. Oh well. Their loss was his gain.

His fingers dug into the yielding earth with the force of a backhoe. Behind him, the dirt flew up in such amounts it looked as if it were being kicked up by an explosion. Finally, he reached them. The bags were as dirty as expected from being in the ground so long, but the money inside was still good. Smiling in smug self-satisfaction, Kon slung the bags over his shoulder and went on his way. Being in a charitable mood, he even left one bag for whoever owned the property to find.

After flying through a raincloud to get clean, Kon set about securing his new "investment." Setting up the bank account was easy once Kon figured out how to reach into the teller's computer hard drive with his tactile telekinesis and alter all the little ones and zeroes to show Conner Moon as a model citizen. After that, the hardest part was finding a dignified wallet to carry his ATM card in.

Kon ran into Tim at the general store (and here he thought that Oregon Trail had just made that up).

"Jesus Christ, Kon, where have you _been_?" Tim asked, exasperated.

"Chill, 'dad,' I was out."

Tim grabbed Kon's arm. "Out? Out where? Out of your _mind_!? Because that's the only explanation I can think of for you going AWOL while half the superhero community is out looking for you!"

"What, they want my autograph?" Kon pulled his arm away and looked through the store's pathetic wine selection. "If a storm is coming, the options are to seek shelter or to stand and rage, defiant, against the elements. Me, I think shelter's overrated."

"Listen to yourself. This isn't like you, Kon."

Kon pulled out the closest thing to a quality vintage and strode for the cashier. "Maybe it is. Maybe all this time I've been so worried about living up to the Big S's standard that I never realized I was in his shadow. You ever think of that, Boy Wonder?"

"I'll tell you what I did think of. You're way too young to be purchasing that alcoholic beverage."

Kon pulled out a hundred dollar bill. "I think my friend Mr. Franklin will vouch for how mature I am emotionally."

He slipped the money to a grateful cashier, who quickly began ringing the items up.

"Where'd you get that money?" Tim persisted as they left the store.

"Found it."

"Found it."

"Is there an echo in here or is it just me? I found it. Just lying around."

"Kon, you've got to turn it into the authorities."

Kon smirked. "Tell me, geek-boy, which one of the Doctor Whos said that famous wisdom 'Finders keepers, losers weepers'?"

Tim shook his head. "You're not yourself."

Clapping him on the shoulder, Kon continued to drive the dagger in. "I get it. You're pissed that I'm spending more time with my girl than I am with my best friend. Look, thanks for bringing me back, 'dad,' but now I don't need you. I realize we're a team and all, I do the walkin', you do the talkin'... but in the year that I've been gone, I would've hoped you discovered how to walk on your own two feet." Kon leaned in close. "So get walking."

* * *

"I know things have been tough between us. Lately, I've had my... interests, you've had yours. And they've rarely coincided. I think we share the fault on that. But right now, it is extremely important that we be as truthful with each other as possible."

Cassie nodded.

"Now," Princess Diana said, sitting down, "have you been contacted in any way by a man claiming to be Kon-El?"

* * *

Hopping a freight train shaved a few hours off the trip across the state and Tim found himself back in Gotham in no time flat. It wasn't just that Gotham was the last place they'd look... whichever "they" Superman had recruited. He had... business.

The graveyard was empty. Everything was this time of night. For a moment, Tim wondered if he would find the space where Jason's tombstone lay if he looked. Probably not. That's just the kind of detail Bruce would attend to. Still, he wondered what had happened to it. Had they thrown it in the trash? Broken it down somewhere? Or maybe it was here, in front of him, recycled into a new tombstone.

Stephanie Brown. Beloved Daughter. Couldn't even get it right on her inscription. Thinking back on all her attributes (which was a great way to get himself good and depressed, not that he ever needed to go to much trouble), "beloved" wasn't one he could settle on in much honesty. And, like everything, part of that was his fault.

Tim didn't fall to his knees. He didn't wail or pound at the tombstone like he could intimidate it into giving his girlfriend back. He just stood there at a vaguely military attention, staring the headstone down.

"I think I've made a terrible mistake," Tim said without much preamble. His voice sounded hollow. "I thought if I could fix just one little part of my world, just one little part, then the rest could fall into place. Then I could make sense of it. But nothing makes sense anymore. It's like he's a different person. I miss you so much. What do I do? Please, tell me what to do!?"

"You adapt. You survive," the voice said from behind him. Its owner walked up to the grave, stopping next to him.

"Hi Cass," Tim said. "So, where ya been?"

"College."

"That's just crazy enough to be true."

* * *

"Knock knock," Kon said, bursting into Cassie's house with his customary flair. "The dark knight returns! Oh, wait, no, that's not it..."

Cassie looked up at him. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes red, used tissues crumpled up all around her.

"What's the matter? Did they cancel Invader ZIM again?"

"Are you... you?"

Kon cocked his head. "Don't you think it's a bit early in the morning for existentialism?"

"It was Wonder Woman... she came here..."

Instantly Kon was on the ground next to her, gripping her shoulders firmly. "What'd you tell her?"

"Kon, that hurts..."

Kon shook her. "What does she know!?"

"Conner, please..."

Kon let go hurriedly. "I'm... I'm sorry. I have to go now."

Cassie stood up, reaching out to him as he flew out the open door. "Wait! Don't leave me... again..."

* * *

Kon hovered in the air, scouting the horizon in all directions. _Think. She has an invisible plane, right? What does that mean? Invisible, means it has to bend the light around it. But the inside has to be visible, otherwise how would she fly it? So only the exterior is invisible._

Kon smiled at his own brilliance as he used his X-ray vision. Quickly, the jet came into sight. To his eyes, it looked half-open, like a geode. Wonder Woman sat inside. Kon sped towards her at about four times the speed of sound. On his first pass, he ripped off the wings.

"Woman drivers," he scoffed to himself as the jet made a nasty-looking crash landing. A single red boot kicked the invisible hatch off. It flickered visible a few times before crashing back to earth and becoming permanently visible. Slowly, Wonder Woman staggered out of the wreck and fell to the ground.

"'A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.' Irina Dunn, 1970," Kon quoted as he floated to the ground. "But right now you're looking more like a fish out of water." He picked her up by the hair, pulling her face close to his. "Amnesia is caused by damage to the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain. Now, do you know what ECT is?"

"Electro... shock treatment," Wonder Woman mumbled.

"Very good. Gold star for you. Basically, I'm going to disrupt your memory, inducing lacunar amnesia. You won't remember anything after... well, I don't know, I haven't exactly field-tested this. Thanks for volunteering. And since you're not going to remember this anyway..."

He kissed her. She bit down on his lower lip as he did, but that just egged him on. Suddenly, she stiffened, her eyes growing wide. Then her eyelids grew heavy and she slumped to the ground. Kon stood over her.

"Sorry. But it's you or me."

* * *

Tim sat on the bed and watched Cass as she ordered room service. It made sense. He had no energy for a return trip to... to Kon, and it wasn't like he could just go back to Bruce. _Hey, Bats, in a little bit of hot water over the whole cloning thing, mind if I crash at your place?_

Her English had improved notably. She was no longer as hesitant in her word choices, her sentences were more complex than he remembered. Cass was still taciturn, but it was out of choice rather than necessity. Tim waited until she got off the phone to say the words he had wanted to say to her for over a year.

"You weren't the only one who loved her."

"I know," Cass said with a sadness that bordered on the infinite. She looked over at him and he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "We never talked about it, but it was always between us, wasn't it? The fact that she loved both of us. I suppose it didn't really matter, she had enough love for both of us... and she loved us too much to choose."

Tim shook his head. "No. We loved her too much to make her choose."

He got up and went to the window, looking out at the Gotham cityscape they had used to share. Behind him, the food arrived and Cass set it down on a table. Tim gently leaned forward until his forehead was braced against the glass of the window. Now he was looking straight down to the ground far, far below. Once, he would've defied that kind of gravity with ease. Now, it terrified him more than he could say.

"I never thought we could die. All of us, the family. Not until Steph."

Cass approached him, leaving the food uneaten. Gently helping him shrug off his jacket, she kissed his shoulder. "Did she used to touch you like this?"

Whirling around, Tim's sudden motion sent the blinds swinging back and forth. "What the hell are you doing?"

Cass rocked back on her heels with that subtle quirk of a smile that was distinctly Cassandra. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Since when have you had a thing for me?" Tim demanded.

"I've always wanted to know what Steph saw in you. No offense."

"None taken."

"And I've always considered you intriguing," continued Cass. "If I ever needed heirs, you would make an optimal mate."

"Gee, thanks."

He started for the food. She grabbed his hand. "The food's getting cold."

"You need this," Cass insisted. "How long has it been?"

"Everyone has dry spells..."

"Not that. Since you felt love, of any kind?"

"I don't think... since my father died."

"Far too long."

The kiss was short and sweet and just like how Steph used to do it, right down to the tongue that didn't know quite where to go.

"It's alright if you call me Steph. I'll touch you like she used to. After all this time, I still remember. How could I forget?"

"That's what I worried about," Tim admitted. "If I loved her, how could I forget?"

"Then let me remind you."

Then her hands were on him, running up his chest and down between his legs and it took all his willpower to take her by the wrists and hold her there while she looked up at him without comprehension, the way she had so many times so long ago.

"She's dead," he said, because it was the truth and she deserved it. "You're not her. And neither am I. I don't want to know how she made love. I want to know how you do."

This time the kiss wasn't short and it wasn't sweet, but it was her instead of _her_ and it was real and he could feel her teeth grinding against his as she reached into his fly and this time he didn't stop her...

* * *

Cassie felt pain. Pain and, as a distant second, her own blood running down her body. It was quite an interesting sensation. She reflected on there being no shame in being beaten by Superboy-Prime. After all, he had taken down all of the Teen Titans, what chance did she have on her own? She had put up a good fight. Cassie felt sure that the valkyries would accept her into Valhalla where...

Wait. No. That was Norse mythology. Damnit.

"You were his main gal, weren't you?" Prime said as she looked at him with one swollen eye. "Slut. I bet you've had sex outside of marriage. I can_smell_ it on you..."

Suddenly, hands were on his shoulders, lifting him up and throwing him across the room.

"Hey, motherfucker," came a familiar voice. "Guess who's back."

Prime looked up, suddenly fearful. "It can't be you! You're dead! I killed you!"

Kon stepped into the light, smiling. "That's right, 'Superboy'. You did kill me. But the thing of it is... you didn't do a very good job."

The next punch sent him through the wall.

* * *

"Did that mean anything?"

"It always means something."

"To you, I mean."

"I'm not in love with you. I'll let you know if that changes."

* * *

Superboy-Prime got up, a bit shakily, as Kon steadily advanced on him. Prime sent out two beams of heatvision that burned with the force of a supernova, but the air seemed to solidify in front of Kon and the lasers just stopped.

"See, I'm two halves..." Kon said, still smiling. "Split right down the middle. Half Luthor, half Superman. Half ascended to heaven, half condemned to hell. I've been to hell and back, boy. And I brought back a little taste of home for ya."

With that, he reached out and touched Prime. The villain felt his skin splitting open, felt his insides rending, felt his eyes bloat and run down the sides of his face like poached eggs. He fell to his knees and agony. Kon dabbed his forefinger with Superboy's blood and drew the yin of a Taijitu on his white T-shirt.

"I don't need the symbol anymore. But I think I'll keep the name. A good brand name is so important."

"Imposter!" Superboy-Prime croaked out. "Pretender! Pathetic little..."

Kon grabbed Prime by the throat and lifted him up. "Oh, that's brilliant. I can see the neural pathways of your brain, lit up like a circuit board."

For the first time in his life, Superboy-Prime felt agony.

"That must be the pain center. Useful bit, that. You know how in the movies, it's always 'tell me what I want to know and I'll let you live'? Slight variation on that. Tell me what I want to know and I'll let you die. Now, who's the real Superboy?"

Superboy-Prime spat on Kon. Kon wiped it off with his sleeve and sent every erg of telekinetic force he could muster into his enemy's brain. Superboy-Prime kicked and screamed until his throat was hoarse, but the pain just grew and grew and grew until every atom of his being was screaming in protest and then...

"You!"

The pain stopped.

"What was that?"

Superboy-Prime gasped for breath.

"You're... the real Superboy..."

Kon's smile grew wider. "I'll put that on your tombstone."

And with that, Superboy-Prime exploded from the inside-out. His incinerated particles rained down like snowflakes as Kon walked away. 


	3. Chapter 3

Although you'd think that walking back into a room under one's own power would be enough to convince you that someone was still alive, from the way Kon collapsed to his knees in the middle of Cassie's living room, she had a small but insistent doubt.

"I… I think I made a horrible mistake," he said in a voice like glass being cut.

Cassie, feet crunching on broken two-by-fours and crumbled plaster, sat down beside him. She instantly grasped, as much as the idea horrified her, what he was implying.

"Kon… where's the other Superboy?"

A small smile lilted at the edge of Kon's jaw. "He's not pining."

"What?

"He's not pining, he's passed on. This Superboy is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker! This is a late Superboy! He's a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace, if I hadn't atomized him he would be pushing up daisies. He's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. He is an ex-Superboy!" Then he looked up at her like a comedian who'd just delivered an ill-timed joke. "Too soon?"

"He's not well." Cassie looked up as Robin entered through the hole Superboy-Prime had left in the wall. "His Kryptonian racial memory has somehow made him… relive Lex Luthor's memories. But I can help him, I can fix him…"

Kon laughed, a slow, deep noise like the earth cracking. "Hey, Cassie, remember that Ben Stiller movie we went to see that one time? Meet The Parents? I guess every couple has to go through that. Wonder Girl, I'd like you to meet my dad." He turned to Robin, grinning in a slightly demented, slightly tragic manner. "Hey dad, think I can borrow the car?"

Feeling like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, Cassie turned to look at the man that was the second closest to her in the world. "What's he talking about?"

Robin faltered, eyes blinking rapidly behind his domino mask's mirrored lenses. "He's… he's not…"

"Real?" Kon offered as he swaggered to his feet. "I'll give you a hint. Who here has seen 'Astro Boy'?"

"You're a robot!?" Cassie cried.

Kon sighed. "Christ, woman, I came in you last night! What do you think? God, now I remember why I was never attracted to you for your brains."

"It's not him talking, Cassie, it's Luthor."

"Luthor took him over again? I don't understand, I thought…"

"I made him wrong!" Robin screamed out, tears streaming down his cheeks. He slumped against the banister of a stairway. "Superman was right about you," he mumbled under his breath before fighting his way back to a sure footing. "But I can fix it, I can fix you!"

"You just want to take me back to the lab so you can Roe Vs. Wade me like all my brothers," Kon accused. "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again, right Tim?" He turned to Cassie, who could do no more than stand horrorstruck and bear witness. "The real me only died once. But I had to die again and again and again… so I could live again." He turned back to Robin, his grin now Mephistophelean. "You have no idea how much I wanted to smack you when you bitched and moaned _incessantly_ over losing daddy dearest. **At least you had a father!** All I had was a test tube and string of kamikaze adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine."

"You… you cloned him!" Cassie gasped out, hand at her mouth.

"Yes, dear, try and keep up."

Robin held out his hands in a placating gesture. "Kon, you're not thinking clearly…"

"Oh, you had no idea how I'm thinking. This is my birthright. I'm a Luthor, Tim… and you can't stand that now _I'm_ the smart one!"

"That's not true!"

"How could you!?" Cassie cried out, lunging at Tim. She grabbed him by the high black collar of his cape and slammed him into the wall. "I was just starting to let him go and then you send this… this _thing_ to replace him!"

Kon's fall fell, his arrogant expression gone. "Thing? But Cassie, I… we… love…" He lowered his gaze to the ground, downcast, and when he came back up his eyes were as black and sinister as a shark's. "I knew you wouldn't understand. Why can't you just be happy for me!? I'm not confused anymore! I'm not denying who I am anymore! Unlike _you_," and with that he turned his gaze to Tim, who now had Cassie's hand wrapped tightly around his neck. "You hide your darkness, dress it up in bright red spandex and mask it with a witty one-liner. But me, I've learned to embrace my duality."

"Cassie, please…" Tim begged. "I just wanted to help…"

"You didn't!" Cassie yelled, tears of rage welling in her eyes. "I thought you of all people would know…"

"I couldn't live without him…" Tim whispered as the remainder of the air in his lungs left.

Cassie let him go. "What did you do to him?" she demanded from the fallen heap he became. "He killed the evil Superboy."

"He killed me first. It was only fair."

Robin reached up and took Cassie's face in his hands. "We need to get him to Zatanna. She can fix him."

"Let me guess. By scrubbing the Luthor right out of my brainpan?" Kon's eye twitched. Under his feet, the floor seemed to pulse. In short order the entire house was shaking. "You're not really going to listen to him, are you… Cassie?"

Cassie stepped over Robin to approach him. "He's right about one thing. You're not well. You need help."

Robin rolled out of the way as a picture frame smashed down where his head had been a moment ago. The shaking was quickly bounding up the Richter scale. "Cassie! Get away from him!"

Kon's hand squeezed into a fist, tension traveling up his arm. The quake continued to intensify, every bit of glass in the house cracking in strange fractal patterns. Tim recognized the Mandelbrot Set in a window pane. Then he ripped his mask off as the lenses were bisected by the Julia Set. "Are you with me, Cassie?" Kon asked, his voice small and lost.

"I am, but you need to…"

"Are you with me?"

"Always."

Half-Kryptonian eyes blinked closed. Tim held his breath. Then they opened and looked directly at Cassie, seeming to peer into her soul.

"Liar," Kon said.

His eyes flared red.

* * *

"She's lucky to be alive," Alfred said, pulling off his surgical gloves. "Third-degree burns over ninety percent of her body. If it weren't for her rather… mythological healing abilities, she'd spend the rest of her life screaming in pain."

Tim's eyes followed the sedative in Cassie's IV drip as it flowed into her mangled body. "You think I don't know this was my fault?"

"I was under the impression that it was young Master Kon-El who did this… monstrosity."

Tim looked at the butler. "I made him. I did something monstrous… and in turn I created a monster."

He walked over to a small locked drawer. Once he punched in the long-memorized code, it slid open, the contents emitting a sickly green glow.

"That makes him my responsibility."

* * *

"Makor Pinot Blanc," Lex Luthor said, pouring the wine into Kon's glass. "It's been in the family for generations."

"Lex, we both know your father was an alcoholic who beat you with a chair leg. Just pour the damn drink."

Lex smiled. "You're direct. I like that." Kon sniffed in the heady aroma of the wine. "Let me make a few suppositions. Firstly, you have come here because you have nowhere else to go, no one else who will take you in."

Kon chugged down his drink. "Not that you're the best guardian. As I recall, your last ward ended up sold to Brainiac. How much did you get for your grandmother?"

Unfretted, Lex continued. "You are hated and feared because you refuse to allow yourself to be chained by the rules of lesser minds. You have begun to decide your own destiny and your 'elders' find that unacceptable. So, they will hunt you, they will beguile you, they will harass you… and finally they will destroy you. Unless you strike first."

"Let me guess. Superman."

"Who has held you back the most. He doesn't respect you. The first chance he got he sent you off to scrub with the second-raters and B-listees. He'll never trust you with Metropolis… unless you earn it." Lex leaned forward and his smile was mirrored in Kon's own. "Do you think they would have ever stopped calling Wally West 'Kid Flash" if Barry hadn't died?"

"You're right. Superman is the end of the road." Kon stood up and shook Lex's hand. "Thanks for the advice… pa."

"Anytime, son."

"Oh, silly me, I forgot to thank you."

Lex's smile now had a slight edge of confusion to it. "Thanked me? For what?"

Kon's smile now had a slight edge of menace to it. "For creating me. For bringing me into existence so I could know exactly how it felt like for everyone I ever cared about to either die or turn against me. It felt a little something like this."

The screams echoed long after the molecules that composed Lex's body were scattered throughout the ventilation system of LexCorp Towers.

On the rooftop of the city-reigning tower of glass and steel, Kon looked out at the city. He'd heard the whisper-soft thrusters of the Batplane as it approached, noticed the THUMP of Robin's ninja boots (padded to make him look taller, more intimidating) as he landed on the rooftop, but as a courtesy didn't acknowledge him until he came within human earshot. Kon didn't turn around to face his best friend.

"How'd you know I would come here?"

"I was trained by the world's greatest detective, you know."

Kon smiled, remembering the in-joke. "So, should I do something with my tactile telekinesis?"

Tim shook his head. "It's not funny anymore. You hurt Cass."

Looking down, Kon briskly shook his head. "I didn't mean to! It's like this… this thing came over me… **it's your fault.**" He quickly looked up at Tim, a shift going through his entire body. Tim was reminded of a cat noticing its prey. "You made me wrong! I wouldn't have done it if you'd done a better job on me! You can't judge me! You have no idea what it's like to make the hard choices! You're weak! You've always been weak and that's why everyone in your life keeps dying! If you'd just been strong, you could've saved Steph! **Could've saved me!**" He stomped on the floor like a child throwing a temper tantrum. The entire building shook.

Taking off his mask, Tim's face hardened. "That would've meant something coming from Kon. You're not him. You never were. You're some echo, some afterimage that was never meant to live."

The blood seemed to stand out in Kon's veins. "I thought I had to destroy Clark to truly be free. But it's who, isn't it? You're the one thing between me and true power. I'm not going to use my powers on you. I'm going to rip you apart with my bare hands!"

Tim held out a hand and waved his fingers, motioning for Kon to bring it. "The real Kon-El would've hit me by now."

Kon roared "**I AM THE REAL KON-EL!**" and stomped on the roof once more. This time it gave, collapsing inward. Tim landed on his back atop a catwalk in the maintenance area for some of the giant fans that circulated air in the massive monolith. There, he lay very still.

Kon cocked his head. "That can't be it. It can't be that easy."

He floated downwards, feet touching down on the metal grating of the catwalk like two magnets meeting. There, Superboy walked towards the supine form of his creator. Tim's hand reached up weakly and grabbed the railing, pulling himself up.

"Father, these hands you've given me. You wouldn't believe the things I've done with these hands. And why did you give me eyes if not to see beauty? How can you deny me that?"

Tim reached for his glove. "Hey, Kon, ever wonder why we Bats wear lead-lined gloves?"

In the blink of an eye, he had his glove off, blanketing the area with rays of Kryptonite radiation. Before Kon could react, the right cross sent him to the ground. Where the kryptonite ring hit his cheek, there was a mark like a cigarette burn smoldering into his skin. Kon wailed in agony, curling his arms around his chest protectively. Feet kicking out for footholds on the burnished metal, he began pushing himself away from Tim.

"What are you doing!? You can't do that to me! I have such dreams…! Such… I can see the flamebirds of Krypton burning through the night sky, remember how it felt to be sworn in as President of the United States, remember the feel of my first kiss with Lana Lang… oh Rao, it hurts so much, please, don't do this, how can you be so cruel, this is your fault, you made me!"

Kon stopped crawling, lying flat on his stomach, forehead braced against the cool grating. Tim walked towards him with slow, tentative footsteps.

"I'm real! You can't cut me out of reality like a tumor, I'm real! I have memories…"

"Stolen memories."

"Feelings."

"Not yours."

"Cassie…"

"She was never yours either."

Tim flipped Kon over with his boot and, straddling his chest, pressed the hot ember of the kryptonite ring into the base of his friend's throat.

"It's alright, it's alright…" Tim stroked Kon's hair with his free hand like a parent might comfort a sick child. Varicose veins spread through Kon's half-Kryptonian physique like a network of quicksilver. "Don't fight it, please, it'll be over soon, I'm so sorry, Kon, I never wanted it to end this way, forgive me…"

Kon began choking out his last words. "Think… please… think! What would the real Kon-El want you to do? What would your friend want you to do? Become a murderer? All I tried to do… was live up to his example… the way you showed me… oh God, it hurts so much, please, Rao, God, anyone!"

Tim pulled his hand away. Kon gasped in air as he rolled on his side, face beaded with sweat. Reaching out with one clammy hand, he interlaced his fingers with the grated floor. "I never thought you'd be the one to turn against me, not really…" he growled out in an inhuman voice. "You're supposed to be a robin. Fly, Robin. Fly home to Stephanie."

At his telepathic command, the catwalk broke free of its moorings and fell into the abyss.

Slowly consciousness returned to Kon. He was lying on the floor of a machine room, the great machines whispering a low unending murmur. Coiling his arms under him, he pushed himself up and stood. He ran his hands over his face, feeling the knotty scab where Tim had burned him with kryptonite.

Tim…

Tim was above him, lying on top of a spiraling length of air duct that no doubt either saved Lex (had saved Lex) a bundle or was part of some insidious experiment on LexCorp employees or both. His cape hung below him along with a dangling arm, both moving slightly in the breeze generated by a ventilation shaft.

Kon reached up and pulled on his cape, yanking Tim to the ground. Focusing all his tactile telekinesis, he plucked the ring off Tim's finger through the very air and threw it across the room. Finally, Kon glanced down at the unconscious Tim. He looked strangely peaceful and Kon wondered if the boy Tim had been before becoming Robin was anything like that. Kon paced to the opposite side of the room before looking back.

"You never loved me, did you?"

He started back, fingers tightening into fists, when a door at the far side of the room opened. A young man in his twenties, a mop of highlighted brown hair atop his head, stepped inside. He wore a sweater and jeans and his shoes seemed too big to possibly fit his feet.

"Hey, Kon. How's tricks?"

Kon cocked his head at the man who now stepped between him and Tim. "Bart? Is that you?"

Bart flashed a smile. "I knew you'd remember me."

"But… you're a twentysomething!"

"Growth spurt. You didn't answer my question."

"Step out of the way, Bart," Kon growled. "This is between me and Tim."

"I don't think so. The three of us, we're a team. So it's between all of us."

"You don't scare me, Bart. You don't have the Speed Force anymore. There's nothing you can do to stop me from killing him!"

"I know. But that doesn't mean I won't try."

Kon stepped forward, getting right in Bart's face. "I said move."

"Make me."

Kon actually chuckled. Shoved Bart back a bit.

"You can shove better than that."

In a fit of rage, Kon shoved Bart through the air and into the wall. Bart stepped forward painfully, rotating his shoulders. "Gonna feel that in the morning." He stepped over Tim's comatose form and once again stopped in front of Kon's path. "So, wanna talk about it yet?"

"You think I won't kill you!?"

"The Kon-El I knew wouldn't. And you look an awful lot like him…"

This time, Kon grabbed Bart by his lapels and threw him in the wall. Bart got up again, head bleeding from where it had struck cold cement. "Okay, that I'm feeling right now." Yet again he stepped in between Tim and Kon. "So, feeling more talkative or are you just gonna keep sending me into walls all evening?"

Kon grabbed Bart's throat and lifted him into the air. "Listen, speedster, and listen good. I have to kill Tim. I have to do it to be free. Just like Barry had to die so that Wally could be free."

"That's stupid," Bart said, apparently not noticing his predicament. "That's like saying I have to kill Wally to be free. Wally's not dead and I'm free, so obviously you don't have to kill Tim. See, that's logic. Should appeal to the" (he made air quotes) "cueball half of you."

"You don't understand! He has to pay!"

"For what?"

"Everything! For letting me die! For bringing me back!"

Bart shrugged. "Okay. Then kill me."

So surprised was Kon that he dropped Bart. "What?"

"Well, if you blame Tim for you dying, I had a chance to stop Superboy-Prime and I blew it. So clearly I deserve the blame for that more. And sure, I didn't clone you, but maybe if I'd reached out to Tim instead of 'retiring' he wouldn't have felt driven to try and make things the way they were. Besides which… he's Robin the frickin' Boy Wonder, leader of the Teen Titans. If anyone deserves to live, it's him. I'm just another face in the crowd who can't run fast and has the education of a high-school student coupled with the life experience of a kindergartener. In short, I'm expendable, he isn't."

Kon tried to push past Bart but the former Kid Flash still retained enough of his speed to stay in front of the clone. "What's wrong? Why can you kill him and not me? What's one more life?"

"You're not worth killing."

"Then I'm not worth not killing either. C'mon, kill me. Vaporize me or something. Give Tim a preview of how he's gonna die. Oh, I get it. You think this is a trick or something. Well, here."

Bart reached into his pocket and took out a small Swiss army knife. He extended the blade and handed it, handle-first, to Kon. "There. Shouldn't be much trouble for the Boy of Steel to take me down. Just one slice and you can get on with killing Tim."

Kon snatched the knife up and held it to Bart's throat. "You don't get it! I have to do these things! I don't want to, I have to! To protect myself! Everyone hates me, fears me…"

"I'm not afraid of you. You're my best friend. So if you want to get to Tim, go through me."

Kon dropped the knife. Slowly, he put a hand on Bart's shoulder. And Bart felt everything go black…

* * *

Tim held the cold compress to his head and hoped the swelling would go down soon. "Thanks for getting me out of there, Bart. Would've been embarrassing if someone had come across me unmasked and unconscious like that."

Bart shrugged and took another swig of his Zesti Cola. "You'd've done the same for me." He paused for a moment. "So would Kon."

Cassie entered Bart's apartment, closing the door behind her. The force of it shutting rattled the flimsy room, bringing a vase on the mantelpiece (an ancient Greek urn gifted to Bart by Princess Diana) that much closer to the edge. Aside from a few patches of Freddy Krueger skin covered in bandages, Cassie looked good. "Car's ready, Tim."

Tim nodded. "Thanks. How'd you find us, anyway?"

"Gee, the half-human clone with a penchant for destruction and the kid who wears a cape and rides around in a jet shaped like a bat. You weren't exactly that hard to find." After draining his soda can, Bart threw it into the recycle bin. "Going after Kon?"

Again, the Boy Wonder nodded, this time sighing as well. "We're his friends. He deserves to have us be the ones to find him instead of… someone who wouldn't understand."

"And will you?"

Tim looked downcast. "There is some of the real Kon in him. Sparing me proved that."

"Have you ever considered that it's all Kon in him?" Bart asked, pushing a stray lock of hair out of his face. "That maybe he's the same guy you've always known, just alone and confused and frightened and going through the mother of all identity crises?"

Tim looked at Bart with a gaze that could freeze molten lead. "Every second of every minute of every day. But we have to be realistic…"

"Realistically, he had no reason to let either of us live. Yet he did. What does that tell you?"

"It tells me that he's worse than a villain. He's unpredictable. A half-truth. And we have to rein him in. Me and Cassie are in complete agreement on that."

* * *

Scratching at her bandages, Cassie took the photo out of her wallet. It was the old group photo from the Young Justice days. Greta didn't photograph well, being a ghost and all, and Robin was only a vague outline in the shadows, but the man with the John Lennon sunglasses and leather jacket flashing a peace sign was unmistakable.

"Don't worry, Kon. I'm going to find you. And I'm going to bring you back. If there's a speck of your soul in there, I'm going to bring you back. Because that's what superheroes do. They save people."

* * *

Tim stood and shook Bart's hand briskly.

"Good luck," Bart said.

"Thanks." Tim started for the door. On the way out, he turned back momentarily. "One question. Before I came to, I thought I saw Kon infusing you with some sort of… energy. Any idea what that was about?"

Bart shrugged. "Probably just a weird dream."

Tim "Hmm"ed and walked out, closing the door behind him. Across the room, the precariously-situated vase tumbled off the mantel.

Bart caught it in a flash.

The End

**Epilogue**

Kon walked through the vast crystal fortress. All around him, a thousand thousand alien artifacts and trophies demanded his curiosity. But Kon only had his eye on one thing. His footfalls stopped in front of the main console, where a hologram of a man's head floated, waiting serenely.

Kon took off his sunglasses and looked up at Jor-El.

"Grandfather, I need help." 


	4. Chapter 4

**Four months ago**

It looked like some weird Van Gogh attempt at a needle made out of crystal. Kon tried to remember the name of the art style and not think about how it would be going through his eye in a moment.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" his grandfather, Jor-El, asked. "Once the procedure has begun, there is no going back."

Kon squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and opened them. "Do it."

Then the pain began.

**Three months ago**

The wood creaked under his feet and Kon's hearing picked up the individual splinters rubbing against each other. Bad carpentry. Which was weird, considering it was a Christian church. Kon hadn't been in one since he'd lived with the Kents and even then, they'd been Protestants. Still, he'd seen Boondock Saints (at least, one of him had), so how hard could it be to figure out?

Kon stepped into the confessional (confessery booth? No.) and sat reverently. After about thirty seconds, he tapped on the divider impatiently. After another half a minute, he knocked on it. "Hey, a little service!"

He heard footsteps shuffling outside and a priest stepped into the other side of the booth.

"What took you?"

"There is a bell, you know." The priest's voice was old and sardonic, with the kind of chained rasp that came from smoking too many cigarettes in his youth. His breath smelled like a freshly vacuumed carpet.

Kon looked up. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been… a lifetime since my last confession. I don't really know what to do after that, I'm not Catholic…"

"Well, nobody's perfect."

"I've never been to a priest before… except for that one time, but he was evil and twelve and had lots of mother issues… I know there's a God... I've seen angels."

"Ah, you had a near-death experience?"

"No, I had a death experience. But lately I've been doing… a lot of bad things. And I can't seem to stop myself."

"We can always stop ourselves, my son. That's the gift of free will."

"Gift, right. I killed someone… two people. Bad… people. No one who'll be really missed. But still… how do I get that… what do I do?"

"If you truly have murdered, you must turn yourself into the police."

"No! No cops. Cops lead to… trust me, that would just make things worse. I need advice on a more… spiritual level. That's why I came here instead of to a guidance counselor. Although I don't know why I'd go to someone who ended up working as a guidance counselor for life lessons…"

"If you are truly remorseful, you must atone for your sins."

Kon smiled and nodded. "Of course! It's so obvious!" The door opened and there was a sound of rapidly receding footfalls. The priest looked through the screen to see an empty booth.

"Kids these days."

**Two months ago**

"You're in a sorority?"

The building in question was a big one, all brick and mortar with bars on the windows. On the porch, would-be Paris Hiltons flirted with lettermen-jacket-clad underclassmen.

Cass and Tim couldn't hear what they were saying, as the oak tree whose shade they were borrowing was far out of earshot. The trunk was thick and tall and Tim had the distinct impression it had grown up right alongside the university. Behind his head, "SB CC" was carved inside a heart-shaped outline. Tim knew that Steph couldn't have been alive to see it inscribed, but he got the sentiment.

"Why does everyone find that so hard to believe?" Cass asked exasperatedly, throwing her hands up over her head in a very Steph gesture.

"It's just so… unlike you." Tim rolled over to rest one shoulder against the tree, squeezing Cass's knee with his hand. "I mean, ex-assassin, ex-vigilante, sorority girl? One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong…"

"Don't joke. I've learned a lot here. About literature, history… all the things that were kept from me. Tell me, have you ever heard of a band called the Beatles?"

Tim stifled a laugh. "Yes, I've heard of the Beatles."

"They're very… 'cool.'" Cass smiled. "That means good."

This time Tim couldn't help laughing. "I know what it means. How long have you been waiting to touch base with an old friend and show us how much you've learned?"

Cass rested her head on his shoulder. "Too long. Are you any closer to finding Kon?"

Letting out a short sigh, Tim said "No. There've been some promising leads, but he pays with cash, moves around a lot, avoids patterns… can fly, so there's that. Plus, he has the mind of a Luthor, so you know how hard he is to pin down."

Cass got a quizzical expression. "You think he could have something to do with these reports of a new Flash?"

"Naw. Kon doesn't have superspeed." Tim paused for a moment, considering something. "It's kinda like one of those eighties TV series that Stephen J. Cannell used to make. You know… well, actually you wouldn't… good guy travels from town to town doing good deeds, bad guys are after him." Tim shut his eyes and felt the bark pressing into his scalp through his tousled hair as Cass petted his chest in some weird way that made him think of how Dick and Babs used to look together before all the hurting. "I just want to help. I just want to… set things right so we can move on from this. I know things won't be the way they were before, they _can't be._ But they can at least be _good._ I mean, where was it written that things have to get progressively worse and worse? That business with the Clench, the Quake, Steph's baby, Gordon getting shot, Vesper Fairchild's murder… the gang war… Kon…" he looked up sharply at Cass. "Why can't thing just get better for once? Just one time can't things change for the better? Can't something good happen just…"

Cass kissed him. It seemed like a good idea.

**One month ago**

Mia Dearden never had water with her AZT pill. She always dry-swallowed it. Didn't know why. Maybe because when she did, it reminded her of washing her mouth out after a night of turning tricks. It was ironic, in a sadistic sort of way. The first Speedy was infamous for depending a drug dependency and now the new one had done exactly the same. Felt like coming home, if home wasn't a drunk man and a mother who sipped a martini while he beat her.

The knock at the door was surprising. After all, it was a deserted island. And Connor never knocked, he just seemed to sense when she was ready for him to come in and entered at his leisure. So, yeah, it was surprising.

The man who had been knocking was surprising too. He was young, not as young as her, but the ink probably hadn't dried on his social security number, as Ollie used to say. His hair was black and close-cropped. Beyond that, he wore a pair of faded jeans and an old "I Went To Poseidonis And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" top from back in the days when Atlantis was a tourist attraction, no doubt saved from a garage sale somewhere. Lowering a pair of John Lennon sunglasses, he looked at her with eyes that seemed to possess both a cold intellect and a compassionate warmth.

"Mia Dearden?" he asked in a slightly stilted tone.

"Who wants to know?"

The man paused a moment, taken aback, before his face split into a smile, as if he were privy to a joke she could never hope to understand. "Conner, I guess."

"Well, Connor, you're a lot… whiter than I remember?"

Conner glanced to the side, as if making eye contact with someone that wasn't there, then looked back at her. "My friends call me Kon. Look, I have something for you."

With that, he held out a Halliburton case. Steph took it and, offering him another suspicious glance, opened it. Inside were some vials, a pneumatic injection gun, and several sheets of paper with strange equations handwritten on them, making no particular sense.

"It's a cure," Kon explained.

"For what?"

"Dyslexia." Kon whipped off his sunglasses, irritated. "Rao, what kind of cure do you think I would give to the only superhero with AIDS?"

"This… cures AIDS?"

Kon leaned against the doorframe with an arrogance that was at once off-putting and somewhat endearing. "Well, only HIV for now, but the same principles can be extrapolated. I'd do it myself, but I'm a little bored of working on it. There are other diseases to be cured, you know." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Some of the writing is in Kryptonese, sorry, Professor Hamilton at STAR Labs or Superman can translate it. Look, I wish I could stay and chat, but I've been drinking a Thanagarian version of coffee and it's kinda like crack cocaine without the side effects, so I've really got to dash before I implode the Earth's core or whatever. Bye."

Kon was just going into his up, up, and away mode before Mia stopped him. "Wait. What are you going to work on next?"

"Testicular cancer. It's cancer _of the balls_. Gotta have my priorities in order."

Mia watched him fly away until he was just a speck on the horizon. A few minutes after that, Connor walked in.

"What'd I miss?"

**Two weeks ago**

"I didn't think you'd come," Kon said in the handicapped stall of the rest stop's bathroom. He'd gained some musculature since Cassie has last seen him and his skin had lost the white pallor that marked his origin as well. Not that Cassie noticed as she wrapped her arms around his waist and lifted him up, Kon's panicked face now visible over the walls.

"You maniac! Offering to meet me by _e-mail_, of all things…"

"It worked, didn't it?" Kon asked rhetorically as he was set down. He didn't waste any time either. His mouth pressed against hers for a brief moment before he pulled back with that familiar blank look he… the Kon who'd been cloned… he got when he was using his X-ray vision. "No surveillance. Let's find someplace a bit more… romantic?"

**One week, six days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-five minutes ago**

Cassie had fought across space and time. She'd joined Wonder Woman on raids on Hades, helped Green Lantern fight Parademons to save innocent worlds, defeated menaces from the future with Booster Gold. But still, none of them were quite as wondrous as holding hands with the man she'd thought was dead.

"Nice weather we're having," Kon said, feeling the sun on his face.

"Nice weather we're having? We don't see each other for three months and that's all you can think to say?"

"Well, yeah. It was kinda a conversation starter."

Cassie smiled. Same old Kon. No, not the same old Kon… but close enough. "Yes, it is very nice weather. So, why'd you come back?"

Kon looked everywhere but her eyes for a few moments until a familiar song filled the air. "Ice cream! Yes! C'mon!"

Pulling her along by the wrist, Kon scrambled up to the ice cream truck, barely inching out the children eager to place an order. "Two ice cream cones," he demanded, slapping down a ten.

The ice cream man gave them their order and Kon took one drumstick in each hand, giving one to Cassie with a big, infectious smile. "You know how we've mapped the human genome?" Cassie nodded. "Well, a long time ago, the Kryptonians did the same thing with their brain chemistry. Figured out what did what, how certain processes happened… and how to duplicate them. So, I gave myself the equivalent of disassociative amnesia."

"Like… post-traumatic stress disorder?"

"Yeah. So now I can only remember… being me."

Cassie had a worried expression on her face as Kon obliviously licked at the cone. "But isn't that dangerous?"

"Extremely so. But hey, risk is our business!" Kon whooped. "You hear that? I made a Star Trek reference! Used to be I'd quote Voltaire or something, but now I'm back to normal!"

Kon's enthusiasm was contagious. Still, Cassie couldn't quite give herself over to the possibility of things finally having a happy ending. "But it's just repressed. Not gone. Right?"

The smile faded from Kon's lips. "It's like… I know every element on the Periodic Table, but I don't remember learning it. He's still inside me, but I can control it, harness it, use it for good. I have the mind of a Kryptonian, light-years advanced beyond human (no offense) and the intellect of Lex Luthor. Imagine the possibilities!"

Cassie turned away from him, wrapping her arms around herself as if to ward off some invisible threat. "I don't want to imagine that… thing inside you. I just want things to go back to the way they were!"

A hand gently massaged the back of her neck. "I know. But that's not possible. I can still do good. I can save more people as who I am now than I ever could as Superboy. My research can…"

"Research? What research?"

Just then, they walked past a man listening to the news on a boom box. "Scientists today have confirmed that the cure is real. After over a quarter of a century, the AIDS virus has been cured…"

Cassie couldn't help but notice Kon's glowing smile. "That was you!?"

"Well, I don't like to brag…"

**One hour ago**

"I love you."

_That_ jolted Tim to full wakefulness. He pulled his head away from the pillow (the soft, inviting pillow) and looked over his shoulder at Cass, who was brushing her now-long hair at the vanity.

"Wha?"

"Well, I thought you'd like to know."

Pulling the sheet around him, Tim got out of bed (the warm, comfortable bed) and padded over to Cass, wincing at his reflection in the mirror. "So… is this a recent development?"

"Yes. Just now. I've had feelings for you for a while, but this was the moment we crossed the Rubicon." Cass obliquely finished tying her hair into a single long braid and began applying make-up. "I promised I'd tell you when my feelings for you changed and that time has come."

"So, uh," Tim sat down on a nearby table "what brought this on?"

"Watching you sleep. I realized I felt a profound sense of protectiveness towards you, as well as my normal desire to be with you when you were absent." Cass turned away from the mirror and looked him straight in the eye. "Then I realized I felt about you exactly as I felt about Steph when I watched her sleep." She turned back to her reflection and put on a gloss of lipstick. "So I feel that our relationship has progressed to the degree where the description 'love' would not be inaccurate."

"Not be inaccurate. Hooboy." Tim sagged against the wall. "So, does that make us boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"Unless you want to proceed straight to having kids."

That jolted Tim back to full wakefulness all over again.

**Now**

Walking through the busy streets on the way to work, Cass could only reflect once more on how she didn't understand Tim.

Not that she understood boys, or (thinking of Steph now) girls either, for that matter. Or human beings in general, beyond the most basic biological considerations. But Tim especially confounded her. She didn't like that. Well, that wasn't true, there were times when she loved it. But she'd built a life out of taking down concepts that most people took for granted and wrestling them into making sense for her as well. She'd trained her mind to be razor-sharp and whip-quick, just to make sure no one could confuse her unwilling ignorance for stupidity. All her teachers complimented her on being a good study and one of her friends (she had _friends_ now) had given her the nickname "Grok" after a book that Cass couldn't understand because she wasn't at its reading level yet.

So she couldn't understand why being confronted with a declaration of love would cause Tim to just… clam up like that. She was reasonably attractive. Her body figure, if not as voluptuous as others would like, was pleasing enough to look at and, judging from her experience with lovers, also pleasing to the touch. And Tim had, from his body language, enjoyed spending time with her. So the prospect of spending _more_ time with her, especially having sex, was a… how did the saying go? A no-brainer.

Yet Tim had _made it_ a brainer. Most confusing.

Cass was still confused about this right up until the bus hit her. As the witnesses on the scene would later tell Tim, the last word she said was "Steph," as if she was calling out to someone, right before she lost consciousness and never regained it.

* * *

Nightwing would give anything to spare Tim the hurt he was going through right now. Break his legs, scar his face, make him relive his parents' death over and over again, but don't let his friend feel this way _again_. Unfortunately, none of the gods he'd met in his adventures and none of the ones he hadn't seemed likely to take him up on his offer as he snuck into the coroner's office.

Robin was still as a statue atop a file cabinet, his cape blowing slightly in the breeze from an old AC unit. The rattle of the air conditioning was the only sound between them for a long time.

"She's in there somewhere," Robin said, looking at the drawers of bodies stored there. "In one of those… things. Waiting to be cut open and filled with formaldehyde and put in the ground. In the _ground_, Dick. How is that fair? How does that make _sense_?"

"It… doesn't," Nightwing said, knowing how pathetic the words sounded even as they spilled out of his mouth. He had only seen that kind of hopelessness once before, when he had visited Barbara at the hospital after the Joker…

He had never wanted to see it again. And yet it seemed destined to come after him. He'd seen it in the mirror a year ago and now he saw it in the face of the boy he'd come to consider the brother he never had.

"She'd want you to…"

"She'd want me to what!?" Tim demanded, throwing a coffee mug into the wall. It smashed into a million pieces which chipped at the floor like hailstones. "To get on with my life? To get over it? To buck up, little soldier? I'll tell you what she'd want. She'd want to be _here_. With me! She'd want to be…" Tim reached up and clamped his hands over his ears, trying desperately to shut out the world and failing. "She told me she loved me and I never… I never even told her I loved her back."

"I'm sure she knew."

"I'm not." Robin hopped down from the cabinet and strode towards the door, cape flaring behind him like raven wings. "That's why I'm bringing her back."

Nightwing stepped in front of him. "No. I know what you're going through…"

"No. You. Don't." Tim paused and shook his head. "If you want to stop me, kill me."

With that, he stepped past Nightwing and into the night.

* * *

The funeral was almost pathetically small. Bruce showed up, and Barbara, and Dick in his policeman blues. But Tim was nowhere to be found. It wasn't fair, Cassie thought. It wasn't fair that someone who had helped so many people could go into the night with so little fanfare. She wanted to leap into the gravesite and throw her coffin on a funeral pyre, to fuel the flames with the lead pipes and semi-automatics of her fallen foes. And from the way Barbara kept shifting in her seat, she wanted to do the same thing.

Cassie turned away from the eulogy and saw, in the shadow of an crypt, Kon's hulking form for a minute. And then he was gone.

* * *

In a small space in Tim's room in Titan Tower (his backdoors into the security system still worked after all this time), there was a secret hiding place. Inside, a single slender green candle lay. Tim picked it up. It reminded him of a dagger. Lighting a match, he held the flame to the wick.

* * *

Cassie got home in time to see Kon lying in his favorite chair, his tie undone and his shirt unbuttoned. He looked up at her.

"I've been thinking."

Cassie set down her purse and sat down across from him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "We've been… well, for a while now. And Cass dying like that. It reminded me that with this lifestyle, there's really no way to… be certain we're going to be here tomorrow. So it's best to do things today. Live in the moment. Carpe diem, you know?"

"What are you trying to say?"

"I think we should move in together. Do one of those warrior Amazon vow things, like Xena and Gabrielle had, or whatever. You know, be _together_."

"Are you… asking me to marry you?"

Kon backed up instantly, waving his hands. "No! No, no, no… at most, I'm asking for us to be in the holding pattern for marriage. We're still waiting for all the other 747s to land because air traffic control hasn't given us the all clear. But maybe it's time for us to take this whole thing and blow it wide open. No more running. No more hiding."

Reaching forward, Cassie took his hand in hers. "We've talked about it. It's too dangerous."

"I don't care if they know about us. I want them to know. I used to think… I used to think everyone would fear me, hate me for being different. But that was the Luthor in me talking. The Superman in me… that part says I should trust them. And that's the part of me I want to be right."

"And what does the part of you that's _you_ say?"

"That part?" Kon smiled. "That part just says 'I love you.'"

* * *

For a place whose name meant "shivering cold," Tartarus was rather humid. There were no Cyclopes, no Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill for all eternity, no Tantalus with cool water up to his neck and luscious grapes above his head. There was just a table, two chairs, and a slight breeze bristling up from the depths that carried the screams of the damned of it.

Once, it would have given Tim the heebie-jeebies. Now, the only difference between it and his nightmares was that he was awake.

"How is he?" the other man asked. It wasn't the voice of a snarky trickster or a malevolent businessman. It was just as unconcerned as an old college buddy catching up with an acquaintance.

"Kon?"

"James. James Jesse. My erstwhile companion. How is he?"

"Evil. Again."

The other man smiled. He had a surprisingly beatific expression. It didn't fit well on his face, Tim thought. "Oh, _goodie_. I was beginning to worry that I would be deprived the pleasure of his company. So tell me, young master Drake… what can I do you for?"

Tim didn't break the other man's stare once. "I want to call off the deal."

* * *

Bart had thought of the perfect solution to the costume problem. Everyone knew the Flash kept his costume in a ring. So he kept his in a watch. A pocket watch, at that. It was pretty cool. And it also told him the time.

Bart checked it while Cassie and Kon were in-between blinks. "So, Cassie, Kon, what's all the hubbub about?"

Cassie could obviously barely contain her excitement. She was leaning against Kon and rubbing her hand up and down his arm and nuzzling her head against his. It was enough to make Bart want to yak. "Kon's decided he's going to stop running."

"That's great!" Bart cried, leaping on Kon in a tackle-hug and running the big guy around the room before he remembered _he had a secret identity._ "Umm… you guys didn't see that."

"It's alright Bart, your secret's safe with us," Cassie laughed.

"And did you forget I was the one who repowered you?" Kon slipped out of Bart's grasp and cracked his neck.

"So, you really think you can beat the rap on Superboy-Prime?"

Kon shrugged. "I was a little out of my mind at the time. And I've gotten a Nobel Prize in Medicine anonymously, so that's in my favor. Right now, all I need to know is if I have your support."

* * *

The other man leaned back in his chair. "I warned you, didn't I? When we made the deal. You get your precious Superboy's soul back…"

"And I give up something I love." Tim seethed with anger. "I never agreed to let someone die!"

"In my experience, humans have a tendency to get past anything less."

"I want her back."

"It's good to want things."

At that point in time, Tim desperately wanted nothing more than to wipe that smug smirk off the other man's face. But he forced his fist to relax into a palm. "You always brag about your satisfied customers. Well, I'm not satisfied. I want a refund."

The other man chuckled. "A refund? You mean, I take back Kon-El's now-blackened soul and you get back Miss Cain?"

Tim couldn't force the words out, so he just nodded.

"Selling out one friend to save another. My, my. I have a feeling you'll go far."

"Shut up and get it over with."

The other man's smile widened. "Done."

* * *

"So, what, you want me as a character witness?" Bart asked. Kon nodded. "Cool! It'll be just like Perry Mason!"

Cassie gave Kon a questioning look before Kon waved her off. "I think having you in my corner will mean a lot. As long as people know I'm the original…" Kon coughed sharply.

"Honey?" Cassie reached over to take Kon's shoulder. "You alright?"

"Fine. Just feeling a little green around the gills." Kon's arm jerked spastically and the water glass he was holding slipped through his fingers and shattered on the floor. Kon stood up, grabbing his wayward arm in his other hand to try and restrain it as it twitched. "I haven't felt this bad since I watched that Ronald Reagan movie," he mumbled before falling forward through the coffee table.

Cassie was out of her seat even before Bart was, kneeling at Kon's side as he gasped like a fish out of water, his complexion turning gray. She turned him over, the broken glass cutting into his shirt and breaking against his skin. As soon as she saw his face, her hand went to her mouth. Blood was seeping out of his eyes.

"It's bad," Kon told her before a full-body spasm caused him to arch upwards, a broken scream mewling in his throat. As quickly as it began he was down again, his foot kicking out randomly.

Bart was just standing there, half out of his chair, paralyzed, until Cassie looked up at him. "Get a doctor!"

Kon just made a sound like something was caught in his throat, looking up at Cassie like he desperately wanted to get her attention. Cassie ignored him. If he couldn't say goodbye, he couldn't leave. It was as simple as that.

* * *

"Hmm. That's interesting."

Tim looked up from burying his face in his hands. "What's interesting?"

"He's resisting me."

Tim smiled despite himself. Leave it to Kon to find a way to fight even... this.

* * *

"No doctors," Kon croaked, sitting up. He wiped off his face, smearing the blood on his cheeks. "Just an allergic reaction."

Cassie punched him in the face. "Don't you _ever_ scare me like that again!"

* * *

"There are rules," the other man sighed. "Even for one such as me. Suffice to say that young Mister Kent has taken actions to put himself… out of my reach."

"Why!?" Tim demanded, sick of it all. "Why Cass and not him?"

"A life is easy to take, a soul quite another thing. When Miss Cain gave herself over to you, by the terms of the contract you gave her over to _me_. No such… arrangement can deliver Mister Kent. I'm sorry, son. All deals are final."

Tim sat up, throwing the table over. "Then I want a new deal!"

"A new deal?" The other man chuckled good-naturedly. "My dear boy, you have nothing to offer."

Sitting back down, Tim gritted his teeth. He wiped at his mouth with his hand, mind working double-time. "There must be something you want."

The other man made a big show of thinking it over, looking up and down and finally smiling grandly. "There is one thing I could use from a man of your talents. One of my children has wandered from the flock."

"An escape?"

"Most embarrassing. You send him back into my _warm_ embrace and I'll restore Miss Cain to you."

Tim considered it and he knew Bruce would disown him just for thinking about it. But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. In the final analysis, a villain's life for Cassandra's was no question at all.

"What's his name?"

The other man leaned forward, revealing the dark patches where a human being would have eyes. "Jason Todd." 


	5. Chapter 5

**The Way It Is Now**

The line was long at the checkpoint and Tim was reminded of the time he, Ives, and Callie had taken a road trip to Mexico. Only security had been nowhere near that tight. There was a thirty-foot-tall fence around the city, the top decorated with festive barb wire, and Tim could see generator houses stretching into the horizon, providing power to electrify the fence.

Bludhaven had changed a lot since the last time Tim had been there.

Then again, he'd changed a lot too, so maybe they were even.

As he got closer and closer to the checkpoint, Tim found himself wondering if he really had it in him to be a killer. He'd been trying to avoid the question, but the closer he got to Bludhaven the more fixed it became in his mind. On the air trip it had been a hum, on the bus ride a klaxon, and now it was a burst of machine-gun fire in his ear. Kill Jason to bring back Cass. Wasn't an easy question. Whenever someone talked about revenge in movies, the stock answer was always "It won't bring them back." But this time it really would.

Not that Jason had anything to do with her death. That might make it easier. Maybe.

He was now third in line. Still time to turn back, run away, get on with his life, forget the whole thing and pick up the pieces of his life…

And what?

Second in line.

If he could go back in time and kill Black Mask before that monster got his hands on Steph, would he do it? Could he do it?

As Tim stepped up to the checkpoint, he realized the answer was yes. The answer had _always_ been yes. He'd do it and he wouldn't think twice.

His stomach hurt all of a sudden.

He reached the checkpoint and held up his ID to the National Guardsman on duty. It wasn't that hard for him to hack his way to the top of the list of aid workers, not after borrowing some power from Oracle's computers. Using his own name was easier than making up a new identity. It was also another of those Robin/Tim Drake convergences he had used to be so phobic about avoiding, but back then he had possessed a life worth keeping secret.

* * *

**The Way It Was**

"This is stupid," Robin says, keeping his eyes very closely fixed on the radar screen.

"What? Batman's finally letting you use the Batplane and you need to get some good piloting experience." In the backseat, Steph crosses her legs and picks a piece of lint off her shoulder. "Besides, you said we should visit Nightwing more often."

"Bludhaven isn't like Gotham. It's more dangerous."

"Dangerous schmangerous. They don't have the Joker or the Penguin or… or… Orca, do they?"

Robin can't resist taking his eyes off the controls for a second. "Orca? That's the best you can come up with?"

The Batplane suddenly dips a bit, engines sputtering before coming back to full efficiency.

"What happened?" Steph demands, checking around for a parachute and pulling on her mask even though there was no one to see her face at thirty-five-thousand feet up (not that this stopped Tim from keeping _his_ mask on).

"I think a bird got sucked into the turbines?" Robin answers, switching power to one of the auxiliary turbines to compensate.

Steph instantly covers her already-masked mouth with two gloved hands. "Oh my God! Is it dead?"

"Unless it's a Kryptonian bird, I think that's a pretty safe bet."

"Ooooh," Steph slumps her head against the canopy. "That's horrible! That's awful! We're bird-killers!"

"It's just a bird, Steph."

Steph continues looking out the cockpit despondently. "Bird's just minding its own business until us big stinky humans come into its airspace and run it down. Poor little guy…"

* * *

**The Way It Is Now**

Tim salved his conscience by pitching in with some of the relief efforts. It's taken a year, but a third of the city has been reclaimed, scrubbed of the lingering radiation left behind by the Teen Titans' abbreviated clean-up effort and cleared of rubble. Bodies rotting in the streets for months on end had made the city a vacation spot for millions of pathogens, so disease control is first priority.

Tim only knows first aid and what little he picked up from watching Leslie work, but it's enough to get by. He hands out shots until they run out of syringes and there's so many people remaining that Tim understands the scandal a few months back about reusing needles. So what if a few people catch an STD now if they stop oozing fluids out of open sores?

That night, Drake slipped under the protective fence and into the city proper. Reaffirming the entire Batfamily's faith in inhumanity, there are some who's best interest was to keep Bludhaven toxic. The Society made billions pandering to the wasteland, smuggling out those who could afford to pay (and thus unleashing the soup of new contagions Chemo had kickstarted into the general public) or those who could "work off" their debt in post-modern slavery, as well as smuggling in contraband and price-gorging "luxury items" like food and water. The UN pitched in some, but it was a joke of political correctness. They handed out more condoms than they did rations.

In the two-thirds left to be reclaimed, the only law was the law of the jungle. Warlords carved up neighborhoods, still caught up in a civil war spawned by the power vacuum Blockbuster's death had left. Tim knew one of the warlords well, if only be reputation. Tarantula had been awaiting transfer to a federal prison when Chemo hit. Since then, she'd carved out a sizable following as "the Prophet of the Nightwing." It made Tim want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Tarantula and Jason shared something of the same M.O. Tarantula had banded together a gang during the old Gotham underworld war for protection. Jason had done much the same from what Bruce's files had said. He'd started up his own criminal consortium, not as "toxic" as those he claimed to oppose, and slaughtered everyone who wouldn't join him or pay protection money or follow his rules. After Vesper Fairchild's death, Tim had worried that Bruce was going too far into Batman. Looking at Jason now, Tim knew he didn't know the meaning of "too far." Considering Jason's moonlighting as Nightwing in New York (Nightwing's files on the incident were as cryptic as Dick himself had become. Tim wished Nightwing was back with the Titans. Being with the Outsiders had changed him.), it only made sense for him to use his newfound "credibility" to link up with Tarantula, if Oracle's data-mining showing him to be in Bludhaven could be believed.

It was thin, practically anorexic, but it was all Tim had to go on. He wanted Jason to find him, but JT would be suspicious if Tim made it too easy. That's where his old friend in the false bottom of his suitcase came in…

* * *

**The Way Things Were**

Steph is the one stepping out of the shower, but Cass' short hair is wet. Both of their faces are flushed and Tim knew that if he checked Cass' body, he would find bite marks. He knows this because he has bite marks from last night. Not hard enough to draw blood, just a soft nibble.

"Tim, hey!" Steph says with such brightness it's impossible to tell she was eating out her girlfriend a minute ago. "Give me a minute to get ready and we'll be on our way."

She steps into her room to get dressed, leaving Cass and Tim alone. Tim wonders if this is an attempt to make them mend fences and almost laughs at the thought. The two stare at each other warily. Either could force Steph to make a decision, to stop the unconventional ménage ala trois and pick one of them, but both are too afraid of who she'll pick. They're both mature for their age, too damn mature to veer into "the doggone girl is mine" territory. So they start a little small talk that is in reality quite large talk. They converse almost entirely in subtext these days.

"Leg still bothering you?" Tim inquires politely. _You really think you can satisfy her, little girl?_ Tim always goes straight to the visceral in matters of sex. He learned it from Dick.

"Other one works fine." _If I couldn't, why would she come to me?_ Then Cass makes a little smile that says _and if you could, why would she come to me?_

"I busted up my knee once, back on one of me and Steph's 'adventure dates.' Hurt like hell." _I saw her first._

"Important thing is to let it heal." _Don't make this harder than it has to be._

"That can be hard sometimes. It's easy to open up old wounds." _It would be a lot easier if you would stop shoving your tongue up my girlfriend._

"That's a necessary risk in our line of work." _You don't like it? Tough._

"You're right. But if it hurts too much, sometimes it's best to just walk way." _When I want her, I'll take her._

"Sometimes it is." _Try it._

Then Steph steps out of her room dressed to the nines and Cass and Tim momentarily forget the secret-that-is-not-a-secret-but-must-rem ain-a-secret to stare at the woman they both love.

"Well, c'mon Tim, we outie. See you later Steph."

As Tim walks out the door with her, leaving Cass in the darkness, both the vigilantes are thinking the same thing. _If only I didn't love her so much._

* * *

**The Way Things Are Now**

Tim walked straight into Tarantula's territory and didn't look back.

He'd never been a master of disguise, not since the heyday of "Mr. Sarcastic," but he'd picked up a few make-up tips from Alfred and he was reasonably sure that if he happened to run into a fellow Brentwood inmate, he would escape recognition. Hopefully.

The opium den used to be a bar, Hogan's Alley. Now, judging by the two bruisers at the door, it was a gang hive. One of Jason's big no-nos was dealing to kids. _Let's see who's really running the show…_

Tim stepped towards the door and the bruisers ran together like a set of double doors in fifty big and tall. "Beat it, kid."

"My money's as good as anyone else's."

"No kids allowed," the other goon helpfully chimed in.

Tim smiled. This called for another "Robin/Tim Drake convergence."

* * *

Jason Todd lay in bed and wondered if what he was doing was wrong.

The sex probably wasn't wrong. Pretending to be Nightwing, that was give or take. The killing he was a little concerned about, though.

He'd really only killed bad people, people he was absolutely sure were dirty. No collateral damage, no innocent bystanders, none of what Batman was worried about.

But lately, for no real reason, he'd taken to using a crowbar to bash their brains in. He used to do it from a distance, with guns and explosives, but now he got close enough to feel their blood splatter on him, to smell their fear. Did that make him crazy?

He'd named the crowbar Bruce. He didn't know why.

Sometimes, when he was dreaming, memories drifted through. Maybe memories of the time with Talia before he went in the Pit, maybe not. He remembered… pain. And fire. And more pain. And over and over again, his not-memories drilled the same lesson in his head.

There was something terribly wrong with the world and he was the only one who could fix it.

"What's wrong, querido?" Catalina asked. Jason smiled and ran the pads of two fingers up her spine. She never talked about her past and she never asked about his, which was probably why they were lovers now. All he knew was that she used to be Dickie-wing's woman and now she was his. Cool beans.

"Bad dreams. Bad memories. Trying to decide what's worse."

"Memories," Catalina said, rubbing his chest and smiling in that uniquely melancholy way that wasn't quite happy but that was quite _real_, which was why she only did it for him. "Dreams fade away over time."

Jason tried to think back to when he and Bruce had been best friends, fighting the good fight, doing the right thing and never doubting the righteousness of their cause.

"So do memories."

* * *

**The Way It Used To Be**

Jason tried really hard to remember who was asleep in the bed next to him.

It was one of the difficulties of adapting to "respectable" life. On the streets, a quick hump on a mattress on the floor and you were done. But in Wayne manor, it was all about relationships and shit like that. He could just duck out, that would be one way to avoid it, but since she was staying here too, inevitably she would find him and then he'd have to explain both why he had left and why he couldn't remember her name.

Julia Remarque. That was it. Alfie's daughter. Jason was pretty sure that if Alfred caught them together, if he hadn't already with his damn omnipresent… Britishness… thing, he'd slip arsenic into Jason's tea. Which was yet another reason not to drink tea, but…

"What are you thinking about?" Julie asked in that Oxford accent of hers.

"Just you, dear," Jason said, smiling, but not in the way he did on the street. That, only Bruce saw. Sometimes.

* * *

**The Way It Has To Be**

Tim didn't partake of any of the hookahs in the Alley, but the incense hanging overhead was probably enough to get enough of a buzz off of if he wasn't using Lady Shiva's focusing technique to stay sober. Sitting down at what used to be the bar, he slipped a matchstick into his mouth and waited.

Pretty soon, the two bruisers reappeared with reinforcements, faces already swollen. One pointed at him and pretty soon he was surrounded. They were good. He hadn't even guessed that some of the guys were bouncers until they stepped forward.

"What do you want, kid, besides a quick death?"

Tim tried not to laugh at the straight line. Obviously, David Mamet wasn't contributing to their dialogue. "I'm looking for work. Paying work."

"That so?" It was the biggest one talking to him. Tim could take him, if it came to that. The trick was not letting it come to that, since _that_ was an easy way to spook Jason deeper into hiding. "What's your name, kid?"

"Matches," Tim said, pushing his sunglasses up to further obscure his watering eyes. "Matches Malone."

* * *

The lieutenant barged into Tarantula's bedroom with an air of panic about him. He'd been a bus driver in his previous life, before Chemo. Now he was loyal enough (and unambitious enough) to serve in "Nightwing's" army. Catalina, as usual, made no attempt to conceal her nudity as Lieutenant Bus Driver delivered the news.

"Sir, ma'am, we've got a new recruit. Big-time fighter from out of town. Goes by the name of Matches…"

"Malone?" Jason interjected, sitting up.

"That's right, sir, how did you…"

"What… does he look like?"

* * *

They put a hood over him and that was okay, because he was making it up as he went along. Tim knew he should have a plan. He knew he should be having a big existential moral crisis right about now, fretting and anguishing about what Bruce would think, doubting himself, questioning himself, but the truth was he just didn't have time for it. He didn't feel angry at what he had to do or sorry about it, he just felt empty inside. More and more, his time with Bruce and Dad and… and Steph felt like a dream world, with Bludhaven the reality. He wanted Cass back. He wanted to make a difference, even if it was just to one person. He wanted to hold someone and please God, let it be real…

When they took the hood off, Jason was there, right _there_. Tim didn't even have time to take in his surroundings before the shocks hit. He was down on his knees, gasping for air in so little time Bruce would disown him… if Bruce were his father. Was Bruce his father? It had all seemed so clear before…

"Like that?" Jason sneered as his men tied Tim to a wooden support beam. "Chemo's gift played a little hell with the good citizens of Bludhaven's body chemistry. My friend with the electric personality is one of the results. Hector, take the boys and get yourself a beer. You've earned it."

"Hector" got the drift. He and Jason's thugs cleared out, leaving the two Robins alone. They were in a warehouse, a vast empty warehouse. Tim had a peculiar sense of déjà vu and realized with a sense of horror that Jason had died somewhere just like this.

Jason was sitting on a suitcase, studying the lines of Tim's body as if trying to reconcile it with something… or someone else. Finally, he stood up and Tim really wished he had a plan.

"We're not so different, you and I," Jason said, walking up next to Tim. Drake smelt liquor on his breath. "And I'm not talking about the Robin thing. Who knows? Something zigs where it should zagged and it could've been you out on the streets. I wonder if you'd look down your nose at me with such judgment in your eyes if you'd been through what I'd been through."

Tim acted as fearlessly as he wasn't, just like he'd been taught. "So you had it bad. You think my life's been a picnic? But that's no excuse… for what we've done."

Throwing his head back to laugh for a moment, Jason quickly brought his attention back to Tim. "Oh really? And what have _we_ done?"

His head sagging downward to stare at his feet, Tim saw no reason not to admit the truth. "Played God. Took life and death into our own hands and made a mockery of it. We deserve this. But not those we love. Please, Jason. Go back before it's too late."

Jason's eyes fluttered closed and he took a sharp breath like he was experiencing an unpleasant memory. "Go back to what? I'm the one who doesn't have a home, remember?" He circled around Tim, pulling at the ropes half-heartedly. "You see, we're both orphans of the Bat. Abandoned, cast aside because we did what youth is supposed to do. Develop ideals that improve on our elders. You, me, Dickie-wing, even big black Bats, we've been so immersed in clearing the deadwood that we haven't been able to see the forest through the trees. What good is there in killing a few measly criminals when the politicians who create them run around unchecked?"

Suddenly Jason was right there in Tim's face, breath hot against Tim's lips. "Join me. Together we can… I don't know, but it'll be fun. I'll even help you avenge your beloved Steph."

Tim spat in his face.

"Don't even mention her name."

Jason wiped the spittle from his face and Tim saw the darkness that Bruce had spoken of growing inside Jason, only now it was full-grown and terrible to behold. Quivering with rage and hatred, Jason went to the suitcase and opened it. He withdrew a long black crowbar.

"Don't sweat it, Timmy," Jason said, making a few practice swings like a baseball player stepping up to bat, "it's just a dream. You're not really Robin, you know. You're just another emo kid who's parents don't spend enough time with him, dreaming up a little fantasy where you're the big man. In a few minutes you're going to wake up to your comfy upper-middle-class bed with parents who love you. But not just yet."

The first blow felt like every hit Tim had ever taken, every punch and kick and fall, all of them… put together. It knocked the wind out of his lungs and made him see stars bursting behind his eyelids.

The second was like the first one.

The third heralded itself with a cracking noise that could only have been his ribs.

On the fourth, Tim cried out.

* * *

**The Way It Can Never Be Again**

"I'm really sorry," Tim says for the millionth time as he pulls the bullet out. He had reason to be sorry, as he put it in there.

"You're really forgiven," Cass says with that irony she borrowed from Steph. Tim turns away as he throws the bullet away, because sometimes when he looks at her he sees blonde hair instead of black.

There's an elephant standing in the corner, but neither of them mention it.

"When was the first time?

"What?" The quizzical expression comes easily to Cass' face.

"You had sex. When was the first time you had sex?"

And the subtext is so thick between them that even words can't get through it.

"There was a girl." And Tim is already smiling faintly, even though he doesn't know just _why._ "She was… everything. So one night I ask Barbara. About boys… and girls. And she tells me. I take what I know and she's… there. And we were happy together."

"We were all happy," Tim says as he sits down next to her. "Me and Steph and you… and the girl," he quickly adds.

"And the girl," Cass confirms. "What about you… what was your first time?"

"It was… a girl. We were comparing scars, you know, bullet wounds, knife wounds, that kinda thing. She showed me her C-section scar, I showed her where Jason Todd slashed my throat. And we just kinda… merged." Tim takes in a deep breath that held in a sob. "Sometimes I wish we'd never left. That all this was just a bad dream. No. Not sometimes. All the time."

Cass reaches out and traces the scar on his throat with her customary grace, something in her touch suggesting that there was something beyond the physical, something ethereal that Tim couldn't even try to touch.

"Jason Todd," Cass whispers.

"It's alright. He won't hurt me anymore. We've come to an understanding."

* * *

**The Way It Shouldn't Be**

Jason reached forward and took Tim's pulse. He frowned. "You really disappoint me, you know that Drake? Grayson could've taken a dozen hits."

With his other hands, he shut Tim's eyelids for him.

* * *

The doorbell was insistent. Alfred's first thought was to how someone could breach the gates and other security systems to get to the door. Then he wondered if it was one of the boys, come back but in some dire straits. Perhaps young master Drake, finally returned from the hell he'd constructed for himself.

He was right, in a way. There was hell at the door.

"Hello, Alfred, I'd like a word with the vigilante of the house," Neron said, smiling.

* * *

Replacing the crowbar in his belt, Jason walked back to the suitcase. Inside was his special "going away present" for the pretender, right where he'd left it.

"It took me years to come back from the dead," he said to Tim's corpse, arming the explosive. "I'll give you five minutes. The same five minutes Joker gave me."

* * *

"Leave, Neron Demon-son," Alfred said in no uncertain terms. "You hold no dominion here. Or, to use the colloquialism, get thee behind me, Satan."

The other man gave off a sarcastic gasp of offense. "Me? Unwelcome? I laid the foundation for this place. How much violence has been conceived in these hallowed halls? There's practically a room set aside for me."

Suddenly, Neron seemed to look at the elderly valet with new eyes. "He really doesn't know who… _what_… you are, does he? Fascinating. I'd've thought you'd be taller, considering."

"What my master does or does not know will not grant you entry."

The other man shrugged. "Well, you'll have to pass on a message for me, won't you? I think that's well within the rules, even for a martinet like you. Just tell him to tune in to channel sixty-six if he wants to see Tim again. You'll do that for me, won't you?"

"I shall… but I will not like it."

* * *

Lady Shiva had always taught Tim that if a situation came around where your best bet was playing dead, it was probably best to go whole hog and die. Nonetheless, she had taught him the technique and goddamn if it hadn't come in handy.

The situation was bleak. Five minutes to get loose of his chains, defuse a bomb, and evade a psychopath.

If he was just Tim Drake, he would've given up.

But he was Robin the Boy goddamn Wonder.

* * *

From an almost safe distance, Jason stared at the warehouse. His watch told the tale for him.

00:08

00:07

It was unfortunate. Not that Tim would die, but that he would die in ignorance. Never realizing how foolheaded his surrogate father's crusade was.

00:06

00:05

That was what really got to Jason. Poor Tim would never get the chance to admit he was right. Oh well. He'd just assume that the little brat got the picture.

00:04

00:03

Resolutely, Jason began stomping on the rooftop like a kid waiting for the ball to drop on New Year's Eve.

"Two! One! KA-BOOOOOOM!" Jason spread his arms wide, heralding the explosion.

One problem.

There was no explosion.

"_You arrogant little snot!_" Jason roared into the empty air.

* * *

It wasn't like Alfred to ask him to take things on faith, Bruce mused. Still, he had nothing to lose by tuning in to the channel in question. It was probably just some psychology guru with some "relevant" psychobabble for the Bat…

"Tim!"

* * *

Jason's big mistake was in not frisking Tim when he had the chance. Tim still had a variety of weapons and tools on him, including the lockpick built into his watch and the radio communicator he'd used to hotwire the bomb. The communicator was the really big mistake, as Tim was lurking in the rafters, holding its twin in his hand as Jason stepped inside to see Tim gone and the bomb defused.

"Hey Jason!"

Jason looked up to see the brat wonder lurking in the rafters. That was _his_ move, goddamnit!

"Deja voodoo," Tim said, pressing a button on his communicator.

That made the bomb go off.

* * *

Bruce could only bear to take his eyes off the television screen for a moment. "Alfred! Trace the signal, now!"

* * *

Jason staggered out of the clouds of dust kicked up by the explosion. He couldn't see Tim, couldn't see Robin, whoever the dead kid walking was… in anger that radiated out of him in huge seething waves, he screamed "You think that's enough to stop me! You don't know shit about fire! I've lived in it! I've bathed in it! What are you? Who the hell do you think you are!?"

There was a tapping noise.

There were footsteps.

And there, coming out of the swirling smoke, was Robin, his quarterstaff clicking against the ground.

"I'm the man you beat half to death and left for my friends to find bleeding on the floor. I'm the man whose throat you slit. I'm Robin the Boy Wonder."

His staff telescoped out to full length.

"And I'm going to kill you."

* * *

Bruce couldn't look away.

* * *

In one hand Jason held the kris dagger. In the other he held his crowbar. He crossed them in front of him.

"Bring it."

So Tim did.

Their weapons clashed against each other and the earth shook. A kick stung Tim's face and thunder rolled. Tim rolled the staff up his arm, deflecting a blow from the crowbar, then rocketed it up to break Jason's wrist, making him drop the dagger. It clattered to the floor and Jason gave a howl of rage that was more animal than man. The crowbar lashed out and caught Tim across the face, sending him corkscrewing through the air. Tim landed facedown and spat out blood just before Jason kneeled into him, pressing his knee into Tim's back.

The crowbar went under Tim's neck and was pulled up, slowly, steadily.

"Where do robins go when they die?" Jason sang, "they don't go to heaven where the angels fly."

"I saw an angel once."

Tim bent his knees back and wrapped his legs around Jason's throat, slamming him down to the floor. Jason choked, unable to breath past the shin plunging into his neck. So he went to the simple expenditure of bringing the crowbar down on Tim's knee. A bone bent in a way it was never meant to bend and Tim rolled away, holding his knee and crying in pain.

Jason stood up slowly, thwacking the crowbar rhythmically against his palm.

"That's how we did it back in my day! That's how we did in back on the streets!"

Tim pathetically lifted up his staff and prodded out with it, summoning up barely enough force to tap against Jason's chest. Jason laughed as the staff's tip harmlessly rebounded off his chest… before Tim pressed a hidden stud and a spike extended out of the end. With all his remaining strength, Robin drove it deep into Red Hood's heart.

"And that's how we do it now," Tim said through blood-stained teeth.

Jason looked down at the spear protruding out his chest in apparent disbelief. Then he chuckled a little, as if finally understanding a joke that had been bothering him. "Finally, you prove a worthy successor."

He slid down the length of the staff, his weight pulling him down, until he was lying next to Tim. Reaching out, he brushed a stray lock of hair back behind Tim's ear.

"See you in hell, kid… best of luck to you."

With that, Jason Todd died for the second time.

* * *

Bruce stared at the television screen for a long, long time and didn't say anything for an even longer time.

And somewhere far, far away but infinitesimally close, Neron laughed and laughed and laughed…

* * *

Tim pulled himself to his feet, supporting himself on his quarterstaff. He felt like hell and looked worse. And for a moment, he could swear he was something fluttering about Jason, something black and bird-like which nonetheless gave the impression that it had once been vital and full of life. Whatever that something was, it was snatched up by the other man, who had once more appeared with a stealth that would put Batman to shame.

"I think… that concludes our deal," Tim said simply.

"Very well."

"…well?"

The other man looked around with exaggerated surprise. "Well!?"

In no mood for games, Tim growled "You said you'd bring her back to life."

"Yes, I did. And so I have."

"Then where is she?"

"Oh, Cass? That depends. Where'd you leave her?

Tim shook with terror as the implications of four simple words hit him. Springing into action, he picked up his cell-phone and made a call. As he dialed, he looked at Neron and said something many had said before, but none had meant more.

"I don't know how I'll do it. I don't know how long it will take. But I will find a way to destroy you. _I swear it_."

Neron just disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

The graveyard was cold and empty. Bart had been here once before, to visit his namesake. In the day. At night, it was a different story entirely.

"There," Kon said, pointing to a headstone. It read "Cassandra Cain, Beloved Daughter" and if Tim were around to see it he would laugh through his tears.

Touching the ground, Kon immediately ripped through six feet of earth to reveal a solid mahogany coffin. Distressingly, there were no screams coming from it, no pounding on the sides, no "Get me out of here!"

Kon ripped it open anyway.

Cass should have looked serene, she should have looked peaceful. The dead should have peace. Instead, her face was contorted with fear, her hands bloody from pounding against the casket.

Bart looked down at the corpse-turned-living-girl-turned-corpse and trembled.

"I'll get Robin. He'll know what to do."

But it was already too late.

Kon looked at the corpse. They'd been close once. Not lovers, not even close, but there had been… possibilities. Now Cass didn't have any possibilities left…

_But that's not necessarily so…_ the voice whispered.

Kon had had many reactions to the voice. He'd suppressed it, succumbed to it, repressed it, harnessed it, ignored it… but he had never given himself over to it. Never… until now.

Placing his hand between her breasts, Kon reached out with his power and repeated to himself, like a mantra, "Lungs pump air, heart pumps blood, brain sends signals, body heat rises…"

Bart reappeared with Tim as Kon continued the telekinetic CPR.

"Oh God," Tim wept, falling to his knees, too tired to even try to maintain his customary stoicism. "What have I done?"

"Help me!" Kon yelled. "We can still save her!"

"We can't save anyone. _I_ can't save anyone."

"Will somebody do something!?" Bart begged, looking frantically between Kon and Tim. "We can't just… she can't just be dead."

"Why can't you just give up on her?" Tim asked, looking down at Kon. "We can't change things. We can't make things the way they were."

"No, we can't," Kon agreed, infusing Cass with new life despite her dead body's wishes. "But that doesn't mean we just have to accept things the way they are."

Tim shook his head. "You can't bring her back."

"Don't give up on me. And don't give up on her." Despite his words, Kon pulled away from Cass for a moment, looking up at Tim with a pleading look in his eyes. "Please."

Tim fell down into the coffin, landing on his feet in a crouch.

"Yeah!" Kon shouted, taking hold of Cass once more.

Tim took Cass' hand in his. "Come back to me." He pressed his lips against hers and dear God, they were still warm…

Cass gasped. Cass coughed. And finally, Cass lived.

"Did anyone get the number of the bus that hit me?" she asked in her best deadpan.

* * *

"We can't go back," Cassie said, heels clicking on the stone floor. "Even though Kon was declared legally innocent, the Justice League is just waiting for him to slip up."

Tim looked around the cave. It was so much like the Batcave… yet so different. It really was true. You couldn't go home again.

"She's right," Cass said. "Tim has gone rogue. We show our faces in Gotham again, we're dead. Again."

Bart stretched and leaned back against a stalagmite. "Well, I'm sound as a pound. Kept my nose clean, not in trouble with the law at all…"

"Guilty by association," Tim snorted. "They're come after you to find out where we are. That goes for the girls too.

"I guess we're all we've got left," Kon said, looking up from his latest science project.

"So, what do we call ourselves?" Bart asked.

"You three, of all people, are going to ask that?" Cassie smiled a little. "We're young… and it's just us."  



End file.
